Public Funding for Sunamp Limited

Sunamp designs and manufactures space-saving thermal energy storage solutions using high performance phase change materials.Sunamp Thermino heat batteries are a compact, energy-efficient alternative to hot water cylinders. Energy is stored in a patented energy-dense phase change material to deliver hot water reliably, safely and efficiently. Despite having sold over 30,000 times already, the technology is still to be considered as relatively new in the space and water heating market in the UK, where bulky cylinders using water as the thermal storage medium are the norm. Today, most policies, norms, standards and calculation methods used by installers, planners, policy makers and investors are based on the incumbent technology, with latent heat batteries not finding adequate representation. This project will help to address the barriers against the adoption of our technology by helping to include them in the future version of the UK's Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) - the Home Energy Model (HEM) - a key instrument for ensuring that buildings and their energy systems are compliant with UK energy efficiency and carbon reductino targets and laws. Not being include in SAP and/or the future HEM is a barrier to further market adoption of the technology as it is a pre-requisite for large-scale adoption in the new build sector as well as in retrofit programs such as ECO4 or others. In order to address this issue Sunamp is working with policymakers and modellers to ensure that the HEM will include latent and other types of heat batteries. This project will contribute to this goal by providind key support in developing and refining the test method and generating the data required to validate the model to be included in HEM.

Sunamp was founded to respond to the need for low to zero-carbon thermal energy storage and management in the automotive and building environments. Sunamp develops, manufactures, and distributes a novel, high-efficiency thermal energy storage and processing technology: the Heat Battery. This is a packaged store of heat energy which internally uses Phase Change Material (PCM) to store multiple times more heat than an equal sized water tank. During a 'phase change', such as a transition from liquid to solid, a lot of heat is stored or released. Sunamp has perfected the mechanical design that makes a Heat Battery long lasting and easy to integrate: modular, scalable and easy to connect into heating systems. Heat Batteries can be integrated with various energy sources e.g. heat pumps and chillers. This delivers extremely efficient systems for recovering waste heat and generating renewable heat/coolth. The concept is now being explored in sectors as diverse as heating/cooling buildings at lower cost, industrial hot and cold processing and automotive design. Sunamp's ultimate goals is deployment of its technology in innovative products that reduce fuel poverty, reduce energy consumption, and reduce carbon intensity of cars, vans, trucks, buses and buildings by harnessing free or low-cost renewable heat. Nowadays, the number of electric vehicles used in fleets to deliver chilled and frozen goods is low due to: 1) limited daily mileage as compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles; and 2) extreme discrepancies between summer and winter range as the electrical batteries have to provide energy for traction, cabin conditioning, and refrigeration of the container. In this project, Sunamp aims to improve a technology developed in a recently concluded Innovate UK IDP12 project. The improvements will significantly increase the adoption of electric chilled and refrigerated vehicles for short delivery of frozen goods, by integrating compact thermal stores to decouple the energy required for traction (from electric batteries) from that required for thermal loads (from thermal batteries), i.e. cabin heating and chill/refrigeration of the container. Major benefits are: 1) significant reduction of local CO2 emissions and other pollutants by removing thousands of commercial ICE vehicles in cities; 2) increase of night deliveries because of low vehicle noise.

Sunamp designs, develops and manufactures phase change material (PCM) based thermal energy storage devices that can store heat and coolth for many days. We call these devices heat batteries. They have been successfully deployed on residential and commercial housing schemes for more than five years and are now being used to address thermal management challenges on vehicles. Battery electric (BEV) and hybrid electric vehicle (HEV - in electric mode) range is comprised in cold conditions, up to 50% in temperatures down to -30ºC. Typical best in class HEVs (cars and vans) only achieve between 29-35 miles (NEDC), winter will significantly impact that range. This application looks at the challenge of maintaining HEV cabin heating when the engine is off. Doing so will extend range but also reduce emissions in this mode, as the IC engine is off, and the cabin heating is only powered by the HV battery, quickly depleting the limited stored energy. When this happens and the IC engine has cooled off below the stop start threshold, the IC engine restarts, giving an emissions spike as it slowly warms up. The emissions are less the quicker the engine gets back to optimal temperature, and this was proven in two NVN funded projects completed in 2017 and 2019\. Both these projects showed that we could significantly reduce hybrid electric double decker bus cold start emissions (around 50%) and maintain engine temperature and cabin heating throughout the TfL low emission bus test cycle. Waste heat was captured from the engine coolant, in this feasibility study we will investigate the improvement by capturing high grade heat from the engine exhaust gas stream. Sunamp has teamed up with IAV, a leading automotive engineering consultancy, to stabilise the high temperature PCM needed for this application; simulate the impact of adding heat battery sub system into the vehicle cabin heating system; designing a concept that could feature in a future R&D programmes and develop the business model to best maximise the market opportunity.

no public description

Stringent hand hygiene prevents the spread of coronavirus and washing correctly with soap and water is proven more effective than hand sanitisers. Easy access to facilities at the point of need is essential to encourage frequent handwashing and removes the need to move around buildings unnecessarily to find clean running water. This is critical in the temporary field hospitals set up to treat Covid 19 patients, as well as workplaces of other essential workers. As the country emerges from lockdown, it will be vital that people continue to be diligent about cleanliness. Sunamp's mobile handwash units will use RAL certified heat battery technology aimed at cutting carbon emissions to provide large amounts of hot water when and, crucially, where it is needed most, whether on temporary wards, in the workplace or out in the field. The mobile handwash units will not require any plumbing or electrical expertise to become operational. On arrival on site, they can simply be plugged in for 2 -- 3 hours to charge the battery, then the unit can be moved into position where the stored energy will be released as heat providing instant hot water on demand. Multiple units will be smartly controlled to be charged by a standard wall plug. There will be no trailing wires. The water supply will either be held in a storage container concealed as part of the unit, or from a pipe attached to cold mains water where it is readily available. Wastewater will be collected in a container to be safely disposed of. Sunamp's mobile hand washing units will be developed to: * Provide instant hot water for improved comfort and efficacy for hand sanitisation, or for cleaning implements and utensils at the point where it is needed * Be fully mobile - suitable for use with and without either a plumbed-in water supply or nearby energy supply * Be easy to use by dispensing with the need for plumbing or electrical expertise * Minimise the risk of legionella disease -- water is stored at cold temperature and is heated instantly and only as required * Meet demand -- the units will supply enough clean hot water to allow one person per minute per basin to thoroughly wash their hands in hot water without the need for connection to an energy supply * Require minimum maintenance - heat batteries have a proven lifecycle of over 40,000 cycles, more than 50 years of normal use

Public description This project brings together 3 UK SME's Equipmake Ltd, Potenza Technology and EPS, to develop a ground breaking electric bus architecture which will significantly improve the efficiency of electric buses, reducing their cost and hence accelerating uptake. This will result in cities getting cleaner air more quickly than would have been the case before. The project will deliver a fully integrated electric bus drivetrain and heating, cooling and ventilation system (HVAC), which will reduce energy consumption by over 30% compared with existing technologies. Four vehicles will be produced with the system during the project. These vehicles will be trialled within the next 2 years in London and Buenos Aires.

Awaiting Public Project Summary

Energy storage is currently receiving great attention from policy-makers, industry as well as research institutions, as it is considered one of eight great technologies for the future of energy. Combining electricity and heat for minimising cost and emissions in future networks is an emerging research field. Sussex researchers have tested the use of advanced systems to optimise use of electricity and heat, but energy storage was not part of that system. Building on combined electricity and heat, a storage-enabled system groups together the capacity of electrical and thermal energy systems as one large flexible “power plant” for balancing demand and supply in a cost-efficient way. This project will focus on energy storage for electricity and heat, with the possibility of adding more in future research. The challenges this project will address are: (i) feasibility assessment of the proposed storage control techniques through realistic simulations, (ii) deriving functional requirements / specifications of storage controller software & hardware, (iii) testing the feasibility of lab-based storage control implementations.

Intermittent and low-grade renewable energy sources have unrealised potential to displace the use of fossil fuels, provied their inherent drawbacks can be overcome. We propose to couple novel heat storage technologies to the well-known Organic Rankine Cycle to produce distributed heat and power supply using a wide range of under-utilised renewable heat sources, such as solar and geothermal energy. These heat sources are normally too low-grade to be economically unviable for power generation using conventional technologies. ORC power plants are believed to be the most promising technology to utilise them. In order to improve the cost-effectiveness and to reduce payback period, suitable heat storage systems can be added to ORC power plants to either overcome the intermittency of solar energy or minimise the required capacity of deep geothermal boreholes. Based on the partners’ previous successes with ORC technologies and heat storages in both the UK and China, this consortium brings together comprehensive and complementary expertise to address key technical challenges, thus pushing forward the commercialisation of the proposed technology.

Nowadays, the number of electric vehicles used in fleets to deliver chilled and frozen goods is low due to limited daily mileage as compared to internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles. In fact, the electrical batteries need to provide energy for traction, cabin conditioning, and refrigeration of the container. With this project, Sunamp, Paneltex, Route Monkey and LowCVP aim to significantly increase the adoption of electric chilled and refrigerated vehicles for short delivery of frozen goods, by: 1) the integration of compact thermal stores to decouple the energy required for traction from that required for thermal loads; 2) the integration of real time measurements into software to optimise the route of each vehicle of the fleet, to maximise the benefits for the distributor. Major benefits are: 1) to achieve daily range comparable to diesel vehicles; 2) drastic reduction of local CO2 and other pollutants emissions by removing thousands of commercial ICE vehicles in cities; 3) increase of night deliveries because of low noise of these vehicles; 4) access for the distributor to ULEZ in cities; 5) improved confort for drivers.

To integrate and optimise Heat Batteries with Solar Thermal and Solar Hybrid PV-T (Photvoltaic-Thermal) Panels to develop a competitive, on-demand heat supply solution for domestic households.

Generating heat causes around one third of UK greenhouse emissions. The UK 2011 Carbon Plan requires virtually zero-carbon buildings in the UK by 2050. Heat storage is well known to be a key component when generating heat from intermittent renewable sources or to shift heat production to off-peak periods while heat consumption remains on-peak. Today, water-based thermal stores are commmon in the UK, but their large size make them undesirable or impossible to fit in smaller dwellings. Sunamp's heat battery technology uses Phase-Change Materials or Thermochemical Materials to shrink heat storage to one quarter or more the size of equivalent hot water thermal stores. This project allows Sunamp to further increase the energy storage density and power density of heat batteries to increase the potential applications and market for thermal storage, ultimately facilitating the transition to a renewable energy generation scenario.

Sunamp Ltd and Heriot Watt University have decided to collaborate to develop a step-change technology in the solar thermal field: heat storage based on phase change materials. Solar thermal has been undervalued at domestic levels in the last years, but it is strongly believed that the proposition of a compact system based on Sunamp Heat Batteries will boost the adoption of a technology that has the capability to significantly reduce the fuel bills for hot water generation, even in Scotland.

Sunamp pioneered and patented the Heat Store and Processor (HSP) architecture which combines Phase Change Material (PCM) for thermal storage and heat upgrading. In the HESPER project (Heat Store & Processor for Emissions Reduction) developed in the IDP8 framework Sunamp Ltd, Zytek Automotive Ltd and University of Edinburgh intend to demonstrate via tests of HSP at the vehicle sub-system and system levels that: 1.CO2 emission from internal combustion engine (ICE) used in conventional, start/stop, hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles can be drastically reduced by thermal pre-conditioning of the cylinder head and catalytic converter; 2. range extension and homogeneity (specifically in variable weather conditions) for electrified vehicles (HEVs, PHEVs, BEVs) can be achieved, avoiding electric battery oversizing; 3. fuel cells startup in cold climate can be facilitated and stresses on electrochemical components reduced; 4. the overall system related to thermal management can be drastically simplified; 5. materials at the core of the technology are safe in automotive environments; 6. the technology can achieve Technology Readiness Level 5 for automotive applications.

Generating heat causes around one third of UK greenhouse emissions. The UK 2011 Carbon Plan requires virtually zero carbon buildings in the UK by 2050. Heat storage is a key component when generating heat from intermittent renewable sources or to shift heat production to off-peak periods while heat consumption remains on-peak. Today, water-based thermal stores are commmon in the UK, but their large size make them undesirable or impossible to fit in smaller dwellings. Sunamp's heat battery technology uses Phase Change Materials to shrink heat storage to around one quarter the size of equivalent hot water thermal stores. This project allows Sunamp to rapidly increase the range of temperatures at which heat can be stored in Phase Change Materials, investigating materials with high effectivenes in the 75-90°C range to be used in tandem with high-temperature renewable heat sources, e.g. solar thermal systems, CHP, CO2 heat pumps and biomass boilers.

Generating heat causes around one third of UK greenhouse emissions. The 2011 Carbon Plan requires virtually zero carbon buildings in UK by 2050. Heat storage is a key component when generating heat from intermittent renewable sources or to shift heat production to off-peak periods while heat consumption remains on-peak. Today, water-based thermal stores are commmon in the UK, but their large size make them undesirable or impossible to fit in smaller dwellings. Sunamp's Heat Battery technology uses Phase Change Materials to shrink heat storage to around one quarter the size of equivalent hot water thermal stores. This project allows Sunamp to develop a network of sensors that can accurately measure the State of Charge of Heat Batteries. This refined measurement will allow Sunamp to optimise the control strategy of the whole system, improving performance, energy saving and financial payback.

Sunamp pioneered and patented the Heat Store and Processor (HSP) architecture which combines Heat Pumping and Phase Change Material (PCM) Heat Storage. Originally developed for static applications such as solar thermal, this project investigates the benefits HSP can deliver in two critical automotive applications: 1. Reduction of emissions and enhanced fuel efficiency for Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) vehicles 2. Range extension (specifically in variable weather conditions) for Electric Vehicles (EVs) Known HSP characteristics are mapped against these challenges to calculate potential performance. Sunamp is expecting to partner in the automotive space to take the technology to market.

Hydrogen is an integral part of the move towards clean, sustainable energy systems. One key issue is that of gas storage. The safest option is the use of solid hydrides that can absorb and release hydrogen on demand. However, storage systems must combine fast kinetics with the practicalities of system manufacturing. Thus, while the move towards high surface to volume nano-particulates appears attractive, safe handling and containing these materials presents difficulties. An alternative approach was proposed here to coat metal hydride large particles to aid kinetics that require no activation. Larger particles fluidise easily and the coatings allow safer handling in air. This project also integrates other hydrides, catalysts and conducting fillers into the powders to improve kinetics and thermal conductivity. This will result in innovative advanced materials that have many potential applications including static energy storage systems. It is intended to demonstrate the technology by utilising it in: (1) a heat store for concentrated solar power and (2) domestic heat stores, (3) static hydrogen storage for capturing excess electricity generation.