"The project will develop and prototype an innovative and highly efficient low power (<1Kw) hybrid DC power supply (battery charger)/Inverter for deployment in distributed energy systems. This technology is needed in order to radically improve the economics and scalability of distributed edge of grid energy storage systems. The technology will extend use PPM’s (Tim Crocker) established high frequency power MOSFET expertise that is now being applied to bi-directional AC-DC converters, and Moixa’s expertise in system integration and design. Such low power, energy efficient power supply/inverters help enable new markets of small scale mass distributed energy storage systems to be efficient and act as source and sink. It is an enabling technology for DC microgrid, including small scale microgeneration, to interact with the grid scale energy system, as an aggregated resource. Traditionally inverter / battery chargers are high cost and designed for much higher power levels. This project will address both technical innovations in power conversion architecture, and aggressive cost targets for the final design, to develop a small size, low cost. high efficiency inverter/battery charger at the 500W and 1kW scales. Moixa plan to deploy in commercial pilots as a first customer integrated into their MASLOW system. "

The project will examine the potential of Smart Appliances, Smart control for time-shifting of high-load domestic appliances in balancing grid. It will explore rate of adoption and consumer behaviour issues and opportunities, and how to potentially accelerate this through novel retrofit and demand side engagement solutions

The project will demonstrate the technical and commercial case for how integrated distributed storage models can provide significant grid balancing: reducing network and peak infrastructure costs, whilst providing innovative Smart DC power, tariff changes and security benefits for end-users. The project will explore the business models required to make household batteries an asset class to utilities and operators with DA benefits, and roadmap to deliver the first GwH of distributed storage for DSP services in the UK. This will be validated through quantitative assessment of critical parameters on battery technologies and tests, cycle performance and grid shift potential with real world daily consumer usage profiling, comparison to EV and VPP models as well as examining the case for re-use of end of life electric vehicle batteries in grid linked solutions at scale.