Government unveils £211m to charge battery development
The government has released £211m in funding for battery research, development and innovation to drive progress toward electric vehicle production and energy storage systems.
The move is part of the UK’s Faraday Battery Challenge, launched in 2017, and comes as the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders has revealed that demand for battery-powered vehicles in the UK helped to deliver a 4.6% increase in new car registrations to 225,269 this year.
The government funding aims to support the development and manufacturing scale-up of fast-charging battery production, to be used for domestic energy storage and electric vehicles.
The Battery Challenge has so far backed more than 140 organisations across the UK, attracting over £400m in further private sector investment. It has enabled the Faraday Institution, the UK’s independent battery research body, to unite 500 researchers across more than 25 universities to improve and develop future battery technologies.
The latest funding is part of UK Research and Innovation’s 2022–25 delivery programme, which is also supported by the Faraday Institution, Innovate UK and the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre. The government claims it will support more than 100,00 jobs in battery giga-factories and the supply chain by 2040.