Awards of £9.4 million to 22 feasibility studies including fuel cells

The Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) has guided £9.4 million (US$ 13 million) in public funding to 22 feasibility studies which will explore scaling up the industrialisation of low-carbon emission vehicle technologies.

In the second round of funding, as part of the APC’s Automotive Transformation Fund (ATF), the 22 studies will explore several aspects of the net-zero automotive sector, including fuel cell technologies, battery production, motors & drives and recycling solutions.

These studies will aim to assess the viability of developing large-scale production plants, advanced production technologies for the green automotive supply chain.

Lord Grimstone, Minister for Investment, said, “We’ve set an ambitious target to phase out the sale of new petrol and diesel cars by 2030, and it’s, therefore, crucial that we invest in research to power ahead with the shift to electric vehicles.”

The five companies which are selected under the fuel cell category are:

• GKN Autostructures Ltd – Henry (Telford)
• Haydale Composite Solutions Ltd – Graphene enhanced composite hydrogen tanks for automotive (Reach-Out) (Loughborough)
• Loop Technology Ltd – HySmart (Dorchester)
• Ultima Forma Ltd – Hystor- Composite electroformed hydrogen tank (Farnham)
• Xcience Ltd – Hydrogen storage for transport hytranstor (Frimley)

Previously, in the first round, the following companies were selected for the fundings:

• Arcola Energy – Business case for powertrain tier 1 scale-up (London)
• Intelligent Energy – Project ION feasibility study (Loughborough)
• Johnson Matthey Fuel Cells – Production line for high volume addition of GDLs to make MEAs (Reading)
• Teer Coatings – High-throughput coating processes for fuel cell bipolar plates (Droitwich)