HAMILTON-based principal contractor Procast Group and Tranent-based Sunamp will work in partnership on a £1.2 million thermal storage system trial.
The aim is to deliver the EXTEND project to around 60 homes across the UK after the latter received £9.25 million in UK Government funding, awarded through the Longer Duration Energy Storage Demonstration programme, part of the Net Zero Innovation Portfolio from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
The project brings Sunamp together with other UK electrification start-ups, including myenergi, which designs and manufactures smart home energy products, and Ripple Energy, which enables consumers to own stakes in large-scale wind projects.
Sunamp will extend its existing heat battery to provide increased storage duration and capacity, pairing it with household energy systems to tackle periods of low renewables generation on the grid.
Procast Group will provide its installation workforce for the field-trials, along with assisting with the design and development of key components.
Sunamp is proposing a thermal storage system that directly replaces boilers fired by fossil fuels and will include an intelligent heating control to optimise electricity demand against heating demand patterns and tariffs.
Customers will be able to access the Sunamp funded heat pumps via Catapult – receiving £400 for joining the trial.
A heat pump will charge renewable heat into large capacity time-shifting thermal storage, delivering space heating and hot water on demand. The bulk of input electrical energy is from offsite wind energy. Customers will have the option of part ownership of a wind farm through Ripple Energy. The proposed system uses smart control logic from myenergi and a significantly large thermal storage from Sunamp to overcome lulls in wind energy supply.
Once completed, the project is tipped to have a positive impact on living conditions for tenants as well as helping to reduce energy bills.
Derek Innes, owner and MD of Procast Group, said, “This is such an exciting and innovative project to be a part of and we’re delighted to be teaming up with Sunamp on this one. Not only are we looking forward to seeing the improvements we can make to peoples’ homes come to fruition; we are also excited to see what comes of the partnership in the future.”
Andrew Bissell, chief executive of Sunamp, commented, “The money will be used to develop and test in 60 homes a first-of-a-kind thermal energy storage technology aimed at replacing fossil fuels and bringing forward the electrification of heat.”
