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Developed by Scottish firm Sunamp, the heat batteries are designed to provide an efficient and sustainable solution for heating and cooling, helping to counter their contribution to climate change.
The team behind the technology is one of three competing for this year’s MacRobert Award, due to be announced on 9 July. The other two innovations with a chance of winning the Royal Academy of Engineering award are Google DeepMind’s AI-powered weather forecasting, and the University of Oxford, AstraZeneca and partners’ scale-up and manufacturing of the Covid vaccine.
“Sunamp's heat batteries offer superior energy density, rapid response times, and long-lasting performance compared to traditional storage methods,” said yesterday’s (17 June) finalist announcement.
“By integrating this cutting-edge technology into homes, businesses, and industrial processes, Sunamp is making significant strides forward in the quest for sustainable energy solutions by helping to reduce carbon emissions, enhance energy efficiency and alleviate fuel poverty.”
The company’s heat batteries contain a phase change material known as Plentigrade, which absorbs energy as it melts and releases it as it is frozen, similar to the gel in a pocket handwarmer. A heat exchanger within the material charges the battery, then extracts it to heat water as the material becomes solid.
Distributed thermal storage could help cut energy bills by balancing supply and demand of renewable energy, the leader of a separate project previously told Professional Engineering.
Dr Rob Barthorpe, senior lecturer at the University of Sheffield, said: “If we're able to make use of that energy to ‘charge people's homes up’, and store that heat in a really cost-effective way, by doing thermal storage instead of electrical storage, that benefits everyone. That benefit should be socialised and returned to people through lower energy bills.”
Sunamp CEO and co-founder Andrew Bissell praised the work of colleagues who helped provide engineering solutions. He said: “It has been a privilege to work with the likes of Dr David Oliver, who invented our stabilised formulation for Plentigrade phase change material; Maurizio Zaglio, bringing fresh ideas from academia to model and refine the heat exchange process; Sandy Gataora, bringing to bear decades of expertise from the world of HVAC; and the whole team crossing disciplinary boundaries to bring something needed and new into the world.
“Overcoming these significant engineering challenges is not just an innovation, it’s a beacon of hope for reducing carbon emissions from heating and cooling around the world.”
The three finalist teams, chosen through a highly competitive selection process chaired by 2002 winner and Royal Academy fellow Sir Richard Friend, are competing for a gold medal and a £50,000 prize.
DeepMind’s GraphCast tool uses machine learning instead of traditional numerical weather prediction methodologies, giving accurate forecasts up to 10 days in advance.
The University of Oxford and AstraZeneca were selected for leading a consortium of manufacturers, suppliers and other partners in the development of an innovative manufacturing process that was rolled out globally to supply over 3bn doses of the ChAdOx1 Covid vaccine, saving over 6m lives.
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Content published by Professional Engineering does not necessarily represent the views of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.