Punch energy flywheel wins government funding

1 June 2022

The Punch Flybrid company which has developed an electrically driven flywheel energy storage system has received £460,000 of government funding to expand the initiative. 

The grant is from a £31m package to support new energy technology that can help industry to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels and lower carbon emissions.

The government says that the funding includes over £6.6m to help industry move away from using red diesel following its withdrawal for use in off-road vehicles and machinery in construction, quarrying and other sectors.

This will encourage the development of red diesel alternatives, such as e-fuels and green hydrogen, as well as technologies which capture and store energy that would ordinarily be wasted from a vehicle or machine. 

The funding forms part of the Red Diesel Replacement competition with winners from Phase 1 being announced now. The Department for Business, Industry & Energy Strategy launched the £40m scheme to support the development of low-carbon technologies, infrastructure and fuels as greener alternatives. The government says that red diesel use accounts for 15% of total diesel for the UK.

Punch Flybrid, which is based in Silverstone and uses ideas derived from F1 racing technology, will use the funding to develop its high-power electrically driven flywheel energy storage system coupled with battery energy storage, which was featured earlier on the Site-Eco blog. 

The project will have support from eMotor partner Empel Systems, whilst Punch Hydrocells will develop a new hydrogen internal combustion engine (ICE) for NRMM (non road mobile machinery) duty cycles. 

The initiative will target a significant improvement in NRMM efficiency using the high-power energy storage technology, whilst integration with battery and hydrogen ICEs will provide a longer-term route to zero emissions in such applications, the company states.