ANU $8 million battery storage and integration program
As the proportion of renewables in the grid grows, battery storage and its integration are becoming increasingly important. Professor Ken Baldwin is the Director of the ANU Energy Change Institute, which will appoint an internationally recognised research leader to improve ways to store renewable energy.
The Australian National University (ANU) will establish an international research program to improve ways to store renewable energy that can be integrated into the electricity grid under a new $8 million partnership with the ACT Government.
ACT Minister for the Environment Mr Simon Corbell announced on 7 September that the ACT Government will contribute up to $5 million from the ACT Renewable Energy Investment Fund to support the new ANU Battery Storage and Integration Research Program, which will help establish Australian research leadership in the integration of battery materials technology with electricity network storage.
ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt AC committed the University to support the program with $3 million in cash and in-kind contributions, including $2 million for new laboratory infrastructure to support battery storage and integration research.
The funding will enable the ANU Energy Change Institute (ECI), which will coordinate the research program, to build a critical mass of research in the area and focus on commercialisation of new technologies. The ECI comprises more than 200 staff and PhD students from all seven ANU colleges, and is supported by more than $100 million in infrastructure and facilities.
The new ANU Battery Storage and Integration Research Program will feed into existing cutting-edge energy research at ANU and in the ACT, facilitating the transition to a broader low-carbon electricity system.
The grant will link existing research clusters in the Energy Change Institute portfolio: the research on energy storage technology within the Research School of Chemistry headed by Prof Yun Liu, and the research on optimized integration of energy storage in electricity networks led by Prof Sylvie Thiebaux in the Research School of Engineering.
This will fill a much-needed gap in the wide-ranging research portfolio of the Energy Change Institute, which already spans a large spectrum ranging from the science and technology of energy generation, to the human science disciplines that lead to the policy development necessary for renewable technology implementation.
The Government’s funding will also generate enormous economic benefits for the ACT. It will enhance local industry capability and competitiveness, attracting innovative energy companies to the ACT and build the ACT’s reputation as a global leader in renewable energy and storage.
The ANU Energy Change Institute will engage with the emerging renewable energy sector in the ACT and will develop international renewable energy partnerships.
The ACT is the leading jurisdiction in Australia – and arguably amongst the leading jurisdictions in the world – when it comes to policy innovation in support of climate change action.
Through its renewable energy reverse auction process to achieve 100% renewable electricity by 2020, the ACT government has not only spearheaded the development of renewable energy generation capacity in this country almost single-handedly, but has also through its foresight mandated a commitment in the reverse auction process for successful companies to invest locally in research and in education.
Professor Ken Baldwin is the Director of the Energy Change Institute at the ANU, and Deputy Director of the Research School of Physics and Engineering. Since 2011 he was a member of the Project Steering Committee for the Australian Energy Technology Assessment (AETA) produced by the Bureau of Resources and Energy Economics (BREE). In 2015 he was appointed as a member of the Socio-Economic Modelling Advisory Committee to the South Australian Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission. Professor Baldwin is an inaugural ANU Public Policy Fellow, and winner of the 2004 Australian Government Eureka Prize for Promoting Understanding of Science, for his role in initiating and championing “Science meets Parliament”. In 2007, Professor Baldwin was awarded the W.H. Beattie Steele Medal, the highest honour of the Australian Optical Society. In 2010 he was awarded the Barry Inglis Medal by the National Measurement Institute for excellence in precision measurement. Professor Baldwin is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, the Institute of Physics (UK), the Optical Society of America and the Australian Institute of Physics.
Alan Stevenson
November 17, 2016 at 10:47 pm
Battery storage
Like many people I find the concept of battery storage today to be very exciting – we need these large storage batteries in order to get the full value from out photo-voltaics as well as mass power production from various renewable sources. I was surprised to read here of what appeared to be an ACT centered concept bearing in mind the research and activity put into this and other projects by the university of NSW in their science lab. Let's hope that the ANU is able to work effectively with others from around the country. Having spent time in the ACT I do wonder at how much energy is spent there in talking.