BEIS: Storage at Scale

Overview

The objective of the Storage at Scale Competition is to support, through capital grants provided by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), the demonstration of large-scale energy storage using innovative technologies, capable of operating cost-effectively with a target minimum output power of 30MW or minimum capacity of 50MWh for electrical energy storage technologies, or with a target minimum input power of 5MW for power-to-x technologies.

Scope

The competition will consider proposals for pre-commercial innovative large, static electrical energy or power-to-x (e.g. Hydrogen, Ammonia, Biomethane etc.) energy storage facilities. The demonstrations delivered through the competition will be cost-competitive to existing storage technologies and address limitations such as degradation and lifetime issues, geographical restrictions, as well as safety and sustainability concerns.

The detailed technical deliverables will be different for each project, but all the projects will be expected to deliver the following objectives:

1. Encourage private sector investment in the UK and develop export opportunities in new large-scale energy storage facilities;
2. Encourage collaboration and bring new supply chain partners into this area of technology;
3. Demonstrate the potential for economies of scale for non-conventional energy storage technologies by significantly improving the performance and/or reducing the cost;
4. Demonstrate the commercial viability of the technology and create a case study that supports further commercialisation of similar projects;
5. Secure robust, detailed data about the likely extent of and potential for deployment of large-scale energy storage technologies in the UK and data about the savings which could be secured from energy storage in the UK;
6. Better information and improved access to potential new markets and investment in the UK and internationally;
7. Secure increased training/employment in innovative large-scale energy storage technologies.

Projects are expected to support pre-commercial development and demonstration activity between Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 6 to 8.

During a project funded by this Competition, the supported technologies must advance to TRL 9.

Eligibility

Projects may either be delivered by sole organisations or by a consortium of project partners, which must be UK-based.

If the project is delivered by a project team or consortium, a single project application must be submitted to BEIS by the lead project member – the project co-ordinator.

Project team members can be:

• UK-based private sector companies;
• UK academic, research, public, third sector or community organisations working as part of a project consortium with private sector organisations – they cannot be sole applicants to this competition

The project co-ordinator for the funded activities must be a registered private sector company with the necessary skills, experience and capacity to effectively lead the proposed project.

The majority of project spend must take place in the UK.

Funding Costs

Grant funding of up to £20 million is available to fund up to 3 demonstration projects.

The Competition will fund experimental development projects only.

The eligible project costs incurred by any single undertaking within a single consortium must not exceed 70% of the total project costs.

Exclusions

Funding will not be provided for:

• the demonstration and trialling of battery, pumped-hydro or other energy storage technologies which are already widely commercially available at this scale in the UK or elsewhere;
• the demonstration and trialling of thermal energy storage technologies resulting in thermal output;
• the demonstration and trialling of technologies that have received UK, EU or other Member State grant funding for a project at a similar scale – an increase of scale approximately an order of magnitude is required to be eligible
• early stage research (basic or applied), technology development or technologies which are at TRL 5 or below at the start of the project
• commercial demonstration activity at TRL 9

For further information on this competition, please visit the competition guidance notes here.