Led by Professor Ndy Ekere

Keywords: Renewable Energy Capture/Storage, Energy Efficiency and Mini/Smart-Grid Applications

Research Focus

The group focuses on Energy and Battery Storage (EBSG) research directed towards energy generation and efficiency, addressing the Clean Growth Grand Challenge of the UK Industrial Strategy. Key areas of activity include renewable energy capture and storage, fundamental knowledge of new materials, and technologies for energy storage applications. The group is actively engaged in industry-led KTP projects as part of UKs Industrial Strategy Grand Challenge transformative programme, and their work is principally aimed at bringing together the materials, manufacturing, and energy sectors to facilitate the research, development and commercialisation of energy and battery storage technologies used for mini and smart-grid applications.

Ongoing work include those on Solar PV interconnection technologies and the work on Finite Element Modelling (FEM) of Solar PV module interconnections reliability. This work on Solar PV has addressed specific challenges in the West Midlands related to energy infrastructure, energy efficient buildings and energy storage for transportation and electric vehicles, as well as the issues of clean air, energy access and fuel poverty. The group is also actively engaging in research arising from the Light Matter Interaction and Materials Groups of CEIR to explore and to provide solutions for the inclusion of new materials in reliable device manufacture. In terms of future work, EBSG is working closely with the other groups within CEIR to provide a multidisciplinary bench-to-commercialisation vector to realise the development of commercial applications from fundamental research in materials chemistry and physics.