Cobus Loots, CEO of Pan African Resources, on delivering sector-leading returns for shareholders. Watch the video here.
Of course this isn't just any old company suffering a lithium battery fire, it's Ørsted, a global renewables giant. The wider industry will now be thinking that if Ørsted cannot make lithium work safely what chance is there for the rest of us...
11th September 2020 10:21 am
Science minister Amanda Solloway has announced that the UK government is to pump £65m of additional funding into battery development, advanced medical treatments and robotics technology.
The funding, which is being made through the governments Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund and which will be managed by UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), includes almost £44m for the Faraday Battery Challenge, which – as previously reported by The Engineer – is exploring and driving the development of next generation high performance batteries. This funding will also be used to complete the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre, in Coventry, West Midlands, which is exploring the challenges of taking new battery technologies into production.
Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund
An additional £44m will be invested in the Faraday Battery Challenge. Image: ra2 studio via stock.adobe.com
Tony Harper, Challenge Director for The Faraday Battery Challenge said: “In order for batteries to play their full environmental and economic role in achieving Net Zero, we need to deploy at scale and build supply chains for today’s technology, shift from strong potential to commercial dominance in a new generation of batteries and continue to build world-class scientific capability to sustain us into the future.”
A further £15m funding is being targeted at the Robots for a Safer World challenge, to develop robotic solutions for hazardous industries, such as a nuclear power plants, as well as areas including agriculture, logistics and healthcare. UKRI claims that technologies developed through the challenge will be able to address new problems resulting from the pandemic like contact-free deliveries and provide solutions ranging from delivery drones and driverless vehicles to robots that move hospital beds.
The remaining £6.5m of Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund cash is being pumped into the Advanced Therapy Treatment Centre (ATTC) programme, a network of centres – funded through the Medicines Manufacturing Challenge – tasked with bringing pioneering medical treatments such as gene therapies to patients.
“The centres are developing the systems to support advanced therapies, so that the NHS can treat a wide range of conditions, including cancer, blindness and rare diseases in children,” said Andy Jones, medicines manufacturing challenge director. “I welcome the extra funding which will allow the UK’s cell and gene therapy industry to continue to grow at pace and volume.”
Most of the commentary on here (apart from that of the occasional swivel-eyed loon) is evidence-based and no one can have a problem with that.
I'm not sure it does, from a purely technical point of view. But wow, the industry in which we are the key player is really starting to motor.
Another missed PR opportunity.
I think this will start the process of altering the perception the market has of BMN.
So much more than a mining outfit.
Great news. Though in true BMN fashion we will no doubt open 10% down! Only kidding.
Some interesting and encouraging VRFB background at the very tail of the RNS:
VRFB market developments
· Major announcements of VRFB projects.
- 51MWh VRFB awarded to Sumitomo Electric in Japan. This will be Sumitomo's second large scale battery in Japan, with its previous 60MWh now approaching five years of successful operations. This project will consume approximately 300 mtV.
- 400MWh VRFB project announced by Shanghai Electric in China. This is the third 400MWh+ project announced in China. This project will consume approximately 2,200 mtV.
· Large, multinational power companies are starting to deploy VRFB technology in their projects, including ENEL in Majorca, Spain and EDF in Oxford, United Kingdom.
· Successful merges and acquisitions activities.
- Invinity began trading on AIM as a merger of Avalon Battery Corporation and redT energy plc. Invinity successfully closed £11 million of funding in March 2020 despite significant volatility in the financial markets, including a total of US$5 million provided by Bushveld in 2019 and 2020.
- VoltStorage GmbH, the Germany-based, private VRFB start-up focusing on residential VRFBs, just closed €6 million in Series B funding to "double its team and triple the production space.
· Manufacturing capacity for VRFB is also expanding with the announcement of the 3GWh manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia, through a joint venture of the German manufacturing company Schmid and Nusaned Investment, part of SABIC, the Saudi multinational chemical subsidiary of Saudi Aramco.
I think it’s a characteristically honest RNS. Market won’t like it today, but long-term we’re all good.
Impressed that production strong during Covid period. But concerned about future production given Covid situation in SA now becoming worse than it ever was earlier in the year.
https://seekingalpha.com/article/4371371-vanadium-miners-news-for-month-of-august-2020
sorry - it's all paywalled
summary here though
https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Publications-and-media/NFPA-Journal/2019/May-June-2019/Features/Energy-Storage-Systems
My yard brush is 25 years old. It’s only had 4 new heads and 3 new handles...
Do we know when these contracts will be announced?
From website
GE has been operating in South Africa since 1898. Today, GE celebrates 120 years in the African market, with South Africa being the first overseas office outside the USA which opened in Johannesburg in that year and currently employs ~+/-600 people in businesses spanning across key sectors including power, aviation and healthcare.
GE South Africa is involved in the construction and management of the Medupi and Kusile Power stations and donated and fully kitted the Nelson Mandela Children’s Hospital with healthcare equipment.
We are a responsible corporate citizen with a strong commitment to contributing to South Africa’s sustainable development especially in skills and small medium enterprise development. Our commitment to Localisation focuses on expanding local supplier’s capabilities through skills development services. Post program, the overall goal is to incorporate these suppliers into the GE supply chain.
GE Renewable Energy to integrate UK’s first DC-Coupled Battery Energy Storage System at Wykes’s Chelveston Renewable Energy Wind-Solar Park
Project is unique in UK in that solar panels and batteries will share common power conversion equipment
Design will improve overall energy output of hybrid system, optimize costs, and increase reliability
Project aligns with UK Government push to use energy storage to take full advantage of wind and solar power in combating climate change.
Thursday, August 27th, 2020: GE Renewable Energy announced today that it has been selected by Wykes to deliver a 25MW multiple hour duration Energy Storage Systems, to be integrated with Wykes’ Solar PV plant at the Chelveston Renewable Energy Park, in the United Kingdom. The site currently operates with 60 MW of solar energy and 26 MW of wind energy, featuring GE’s 2.85 MW onshore wind turbines. Wykes will use GE’s Reservoir Energy Storage technology to add another 60 MW of solar capacity, for a total of 120 MW of solar and 146MW from the park.
The Storage system will be the UK’s first direct-DC-coupled Solar deployment where the Solar Panels and the Batteries will share a common set of power conversion equipment. This will help improve the overall energy output of the solar-storage hybrid system while optimizing costs and increasing the overall system reliability and flexibility. This represents UK’s first DC-Coupled Battery Energy Storage System (BESS) integrated with a Solar Plant.
With the reservoir energy storage system Wykes have full flexibility for today’s market circumstances and future market dynamics. It allows Wykes to fully optimize the energy they generate on site optimize their grid connection and flexibility to choose how and when the energy generated is used.
Scott Coleman, Process and Controls Engineering Manager, Wykes Engineering Ltd said “As part of our ongoing relationship with GE Renewable Energy, we selected their power storage system as it was flexible, scalable and allowed us to perform a range of tasks enabling us to provide resilient services, not only to the National Grid, but to our Private energy consumers within our expanding on-site Grid.”
Prakash Chandra, Renewable Hybrids CEO, GE Renewable Energy, said: “The world is increasingly moving to generate more dispatchable renewables using Hybrid solutions – combining the power of standalone technologies like wind and solar with storage through controls and software, and, this project is a further demonstration of GE’s capabilities in this space. We are proud to have been selected by Wykes to deliver this flagship project in the UK and for the opportunity to deliver on this challenging solution.”
The UK Government recently announced that it will make it easier to construct projects to store renewable energy from solar and wind farms across the UK as part of its efforts to reduce greenhouse gases by 2050. There is currently 4 GW of storage projects in planning whi
I tend to agree. I bought 7500 shares at 1.23pm. Yet shown as a sell.
Someone bought 14 shares just after 1pm. £1.87 worth.
So today or tomorrow