Energy Storage Conference

The EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI ) and  Newcastle University’s School of Engineering, welcomed over 250 delegates to the University’s new £58m Urban Sciences Building on Newcastle Helix when we hosted the UK Energy Storage Conference (UKES).  The event took place from 20-22 March 2018.

This year’s event was the 4^th UKES Conference, organised in collaboration with the EPSRC funded Energy Storage Research Network (ESRN), the Energy SUPERSTORE and the STFC Global Challenge Network in Battery Science and Technology.  The event, which included a conference dinner at the iconic BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art, brought together delegates from academia, industry and policy across the whole field of energy storage.

Energy Storage Experts

Professor Phil Taylor, Conference Chair and Newcastle University’s Head of Engineering and CESI Director, opened the conference and welcomed international delegates to the event.  This year’s conference theme was Energy Systems Integration and how energy storage is a key element of the whole energy systems approach.

UKES2018 Conference highlights

Plenary talks:

• Professor Peter Littlewood of the University of Chicago and Chair of Faraday Institution, introduced the mission of the Faraday Institution research
• Francisco Jose Carranza Sierra, Managing Director of Nissan Energy on how electric vehicles, distributed generation and storage will shape the future global energy system
• Paige Mander of Nuvve on the roll out of vehicle to grid infrastructure around the world
• Sally Fenton of the UK’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy discussed the role of policy as a pull for innovation
• Tim Hughes, Head of Research Projects and Principal Research Scientist at Siemens discussed the role of digitalisation for optimisation and aggregation of energy storage.
• Adam Whitehead of redT Energy Storage, discussed the design of Vanadium redox flow machines (VRFM).

Keynote speakers:

• Dr Sara Walker of Newcastle University delivered a keynote talk on adaptive thermal comfort and the potential role of buildings as thermal stores 
• Professor Phil Blythe of Newcastle University and Chief Scientific Advisor, Department for Transport discussed the challenges and opportunities of cross-vector energy and transport energy systems
• Eric Brown, Head of Strategy & Innovation for the of the Energy Systems Catapult (ESC), presented on work carried out by ESC
• The final day of the conference opened with a talk on the Energy Storage Supergen Hub by Dr Jonathan Radcliffe, Policy Director of University of Birmingham’s Energy Institute.  This was followed by information on opportunities for future research funding in the sector.
• Professor Nigel Brandon OBE FREng of Imperial College London led the UKES2018 conference closing remarks.

Sponsorship

UKES2018 benefited from a number of sponsors, all of which are key stakeholders in the energy storage sector.  Gold sponsors of this year’s event included: 

• Northern Powergrid
• Siemens
• CESI
• ENZEN