Two British entrepreneurs have been awarded a share of over $8million to spur innovation in energy storage.

Two British entrepreneurs have been awarded a share of over £5million ($8million) to spur on innovation in energy storage, U.K.'s Energy and Climate Change Minister Baroness Verma announced.

Contracts have been awarded to REDT UK Ltd and Moixa Technology Ltd, as part of the U.K.'s Department of Energy and Climate Change’s innovation competition to support energy storage research and demonstration.

REDT UK Ltd has developed a technology to store electricity from wind turbines, and Moixa Energy Ltd has developed small battery-based storage units which could be installed directly into people’s homes to store power and re-use it at times of peak demand.

Energy and Climate Change Minister Baroness Verma said: “This investment will give these organisations the boost they need to develop energy storage designs, helping cut costs and bringing new technologies to market in this sector. The ability to store energy in this way will become increasingly important in the move towards a low carbon economy and I wish the winning organisations every success with their projects.”

Simon Daniel, CEO and founder of Moixa Technology said: “Energy storage aims to help customers save money and reduce peak energy demand, by using low carbon, night, wind and solar resources. Government’s funding will ensure that we can continue our work to make energy storage cost-effective for wide deployment.”

Gary Simmonds, Head of Operations, REDT UK Ltd said: “The timing of DECC’s energy storage competition is ideal for the company’s next stage of development - to design, build, and demonstrate larger scale, lower cost energy storage systems. The provision of such government support is clearly acknowledged as instrumental in allowing REDT to maintain its position at the forefront of this vital energy storage industry.”

DECC supports innovation in low carbon technologies to help meet the Department’s goal of delivering secure energy on the way to a low carbon energy future.

REDT, based in Wokingham, research and develop a technology to store electricity from wind turbines. DECC has awarded REDT a contract totalling approximately £3.6m to carry out this research.

London-based Moixa Technology Ltd has developed small battery-based storage units, which could be installed directly into people’s homes to store power and re-use it at peak demand times. Moixa will use their funding from DECC to install and demonstrate their storage units in about 300 homes across the UK. Moixa has been awarded a contract for approximately £1.5m to carry out its demonstration project.

A further three organisations have won a share of £900,000 under the second round of the energy storage systems component research and feasibility studies competition. The winning companies will use the funding to improve materials used for energy storage systems or to carry out research that explores the application of energy storage systems in the UK electricity networks. The three projects are:

• Kiwa GASTEC at CRE - awarded a grant of £400,000 to investigate safety issues surrounding the use of hydrogen as an energy storage vector.
• Sharp Laboratories of Europe Ltd - awarded a grant of £396,541 to develop and scale up a new battery technology for residential and community energy storage systems.
• EA Technology Ltd - awarded a grant of £104,325 to develop a Good Practice Guide on electrical energy storage for use in the UK electricity networks and beyond.