Equipment sought for UK Battery Industrialisation Centre

Major equipment suppliers are being invited to submit tenders to provide equipment for the new £80 million UK Battery Industrialisation Centre (UKBIC).

The innovative facility is being created in Coventry and Warwickshire as part of the Government’s Faraday Battery Challenge – a £246 million commitment over the next four years on battery development.

A national competition, which was led by the Advanced Propulsion Centre (APC) and supported by Innovate UK, to establish a new UK facility was won through a joint bid by WMG, at the University of Warwick, Coventry and Warwickshire Local Enterprise Partnership and Coventry City Council.

The UKBIC will deliver on the UK’s Industrial Strategy and will develop the processes to transition the UK to become a world leader in design, development and manufacture of batteries through collaborative R&D between industry and academia.

The centre, which is due to open in 2020, will see the development of the next generation of battery systems across battery chemistry, electrodes, cell design, module and pack level.

Five tenders have been published for businesses to provide electrode and cell manufacturing equipment at the state-of-the-art facility.

These include mixing equipment, coating equipment, cylindrical cell assembly equipment, pouch cell assembly equipment and formation, ageing and testing equipment.

Paul Blackmore, technical specialist at WMG, said this was a fantastic opportunity for equipment manufacturing suppliers to be involved from the early stages of a new national facility.

He said: “There are five tenders available for businesses to submit their quotes to provide equipment at the UKBIC which will become a world-leader in the design, development and manufacture of batteries for vehicle electrification.

“The planned cell production lines will be used to develop and prove materials, cell designs, manufacturing processes and parameters prior to full plant investments.

“We have started the procurement process early because of the long lead time needed to provide and install cell manufacturing equipment.

“We will be providing additional tenders at a later date and we are looking forward to receiving tenders for this initial equipment which will have a major role to play in the work carried out at UKBIC.”

Interested suppliers should register at Coventry City Council’s e-tendering portal to find out full details and for the opportunity to bid: www.csw-jets.co.uk