The UK’s world-leading manufacturing industries will be boosted thanks to £211 million in new government funding for battery research and innovation, Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg confirmed today.
The record funding uplift will be delivered through the Faraday Battery Challenge, which began in 2017 and supports world-class scientific technology development and manufacturing scale-up capability for batteries in the UK. It will help to seize on opportunities for private investment and economic growth in industries where powerful, fast charging batteries will be essential – such as domestic energy storage and electric vehicles.
The funding, from last year’s settlement, will be delivered between 2022 and 2025 by UK Research and Innovation with support from the Faraday Institution, Innovate UK and the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre.
It’s claimed it will help the sector deliver 100,000 jobs in battery gigafactories and the battery supply chain by 2040. Supporting the scale-up of these technologies and unlocking further private investment supports the sustainable growth of the economy, which will boost tax revenues and put public services on a more secure footing for the longer term, helping improve life for people across the UK.
Speaking on a visit to the £130 million UKBIC, the UK’s centre of excellence in battery manufacturing, Business Secretary Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “Safe and powerful batteries are central to our plans to grow the industries of the future. From our world leading renewables industry, to our growing electric vehicle sector, secure supplies of batteries are key to delivering jobs and prosperity.
“The Faraday Battery Challenge has brought the UK’s greatest minds and best facilities together to develop the innovations that will help us achieve this goal. The work it has done since 2017 has laid the groundwork for our future economic success and I am pleased to confirm this work will continue, supported by record funding.”
