AGM Batteries Spearheads Hi-Tech Battery Project

Just recently, a consortium spearheaded by a Caithness-based battery cell manufacturer has won funding towards a £5.4m project aimed at developing new technology for high-performance, low-carbon vehicles.

Thurso-based AGM Batteries is one of the five partners working to develop the next generation of battery packs.

Most of the battery system technology employed by the UK car industry is currently sourced from overseas. Through the consortium, the production can be brought back to the country.

Other partners in the UK Automotive Battery Supply Chain project are Cosworth, Warwick Manufacturing Group, battery pack producer Johnson Matthey Battery Systems, and Dukosi, a leader in smart battery management technology.

The project is funded by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC), which was established in 2013 as a 10-year £1bn collaboration between industry and government to build UK industrial capability through the R&D and industrialization of low carbon propulsion technologies.

According to the consortium, at the end of the project, it will be able to produce high-performance battery packs in the UK, thus creating over 50 new jobs.

In a statement, Ian Whiting, business development director of AGM Batteries, said that the UK has a strong reputation for automotive development and manufacturing and is also extremely strong on battery technology research.

“This project pulls much of that together, creating a team of respected industry partners, each bringing a specialism to the table. What we have is the basis of a complete UK supply chain for automotive batteries from ‘powder to power’.”

Whiting continued that the project intends to prove leading edge, new technologies in a high performance system that could then be produced cost effectively in the UK. He concluded that this funding, apart from the huge funding being invested by AGM and their partners, would enable them to prove that they have the skills and ambition in the UK to manufacture world-leading, advanced battery products.