Energy cell

ITI Energy is investing up to £9.3 million in a research project that will focus on producing large-scale 250kW Zinc-Cerium batteries capable of offering up to eight to ten hours of continuous high capacity power. In use, the modular batteries would be stacked or combined to provide a utility-scale storage system.

The battery technology itself is being jointly developed with US-based businesses Applied Intellectual Capital (AIC), Electrochemical Design Associates (EDA) and Lotus Engineering in Norwich.

California-based company EDA will relocate key members of its staff  to Scotland to work on the power storage project and set up a new Scottish company, Plurion, in the process.

ITI Energy is one of three operating groups that make up ITI Scotland. The Scottish Executive has committed £450 million to support the work of the ITIs in developing the technologies required to meet the needs of new and emerging markets. For its part, ITI Energy’s mission is to identify, develop and successfully commercialise new, energy and energy-related technologies.

The company estimates the potential market for large-scale battery storage to be worth $1 billion by 2020.