With the Wave 2 Project Workshops complete, Ian Ellerington summarises the Faraday Institution’s consultation process and next steps.
The next wave of Faraday Institution research projects is planned to start in 2019. In preparation for this, we conducted a consultation process across the UK to inform our Expert Panel of industry requirements and academic capabilities. Many Expert Panel members attended the workshops and interacted closely with the attendees to facilitate discussions on research priorities. Workshops were held in Edinburgh, Newcastle, Sheffield, Oxfordshire and Cardiff, and were attended by over 200 attendees in total from academia and industry, who contributed enthusiastically. The workshops addressed the following six questions:
- What research challenges do you believe can make a meaningful impact to the Faraday Institution’s mission of basic research that enables the development, design and manufacture of batteries or other energy storage devices in the UK?
- What single basic research challenge in lithium batteries, if pursued at scale, could have the most impact in accelerating electrical energy storage technologies to market?
- Do we have the capabilities to be world leading in the research challenges identified in session 1?
- What do we have now? For example, projects (not just ours), capability, industry (not just nationally, but in the local area)?
- What resources, mechanisms, skills or facilities are missing that would enhance research to enable a world-leading/flourishing EV industry in the UK?
- What ideas do we have for how to fill the gap?
Topics raised varied from basic chemistry to novel manufacturing to integration into the electricity grid. Industry participants were focused on cost reduction and the potential for high power, particularly fast charging. On the infrastructure side, a recurring message heard was that the UK has first-rate capability but that it can be difficult to access.
The group contributions have been compiled and summarised in a discussion document for the Expert Panel to review. They will make recommendations regarding the scope of the next round of research projects. We intend to publish the consolidated outputs from the workshops on our website in mid-November (individual contributors will not be identified).
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