Intellectual property company IP Group said on Thursday that portfolio company RFC Power, a long-duration energy storage company, had signed a joint development agreement with fuel cell technology firm Ceres Power.
IP Group stated the joint development agreement aimed to improve and accelerate RFC Power’s technology through the use of Ceres’ expertise in electrochemistry and device engineering.
RFC Power, a spin-out from Imperial College London, aims to develop the world’s lowest-cost flow battery, a hybrid between a fuel cell and a battery that decouples power from energy. IP, which has a fully diluted holding of 33.2% in RFC Power, said the company’s patented hydrogen manganese chemistry had the potential to deliver low cost and high round-trip efficiency with an extremely long cycle-life.
Investment manager Andrew Symes said: “Our mission is to identify the technologies which plug gaps in the transition to net-zero and build them into scalable businesses. Long-duration storage is one of those gaps and having identified RFC’s distinctive hydrogen manganese system in 2018, we are delighted to see the progress with the Ceres collaboration announced today.”
As of 1010 GMT, IP Group shares were down 0.34% at 119.0p.
