Loughborough University is the first organisation to undertake to build and operate a lead acid battery-electrolyser which has the potential to be both sustainable and competitive, due to its seamless integration into the lead acid battery recycling chain, abundance of materials and low capital cost.
With MESCH, the £1.5M Innovate UK Modular Energy Storage with Clean Hydrogen our full-scale pilot system for a rural hospital in Malawi will deliver:
- Reliable solar energy storage for lighting, refrigeration of vaccines, and powering essential medical devices.
- Green hydrogen for safe, smokeless cooking, reducing indoor air pollution and eliminating the need for charcoal.
- Automated operation via an embedded control system, ensuring low maintenance requirements and high reliability.
Through LOCEL-H2, the €10M Horizon Europe Sustainable Energy Storage Project, parallel deployments will support a school in Zambia and a community restaurant in Ivory Coast, proving the system’s adaptability and economic value.
Beyond off-grid communities, our technology also supports offshore wind integration. In the UK alone, £1.5 billion was spent curtailing wind energy between 2021 and 2023, wasting 6.5 TWh of clean power and releasing 2.5 million tonnes of emissions. Our battery-electrolyser offers a scalable solution for converting curtailed energy into hydrogen – turning wasted wind into value.
