The storage of electricity produced by intermittent renewable sources is the bottleneck of the transition towards a fully green energy landscape. Besides technical suitability, the stationary storage with battery technologies applied to buffer the temporal mismatch between electricity production and demand have to comply with very tight economic constraints to be competitive with fossil fuel combustion technologies, and thus allowing for further nurturing of a sustainable energy transition. Moreover, sensitive aspects concerning the secured supply of critical raw materials and the strategic technological independence are now at the forefront of the discussions and need to be addressed natively to any battery technology to be developed. The consortium for RAMSES project brings the partners together from both sides of the Rhine; and proposes to setup the basis for an innovative European-based practical solution. RAMSES project aims at demonstrating that a rechargeable alkaline zinc – manganese dioxide (ZnMnO2) battery technology, being made of abundant, environmentally friendly, intrinsically safe and robust materials, without issues for recycling step and presenting auspicious life cycle costs, could be more advantageous than state-of-the-art Li-ion batteries for the stationary electricity storage. By construction of a prototype, this project will demonstrate that ZnMnO2 batteries will fulfil the requirements for energy storage from residential and grid photovoltaic production, in terms of load profiles and costs. Such objective relies on the promising preliminary results already obtained by the partners involved in the project, namely (i) the SCPS that has developed a solution for the zinc electrode based on the development of a NiZn battery, making 2000 cycles at 100% depth of discharge (DOD) and (ii) a consolidated approach for MnO2 electrode with 4000 cycles in half-cell tests and 1000 cycles in battery tests, by the ZSW and the SCPS, respectively. To improve the charge-discharge capability of the ZnMnO2 battery, a multipath approach will be adopted to develop cutting-edge materials, to secure the output and to unveil a deeper understanding of electrode processes down to the atomic scale level, through the establishment of straightforward relations between electrode properties and their structural/chemical characteristics. The French-German consortium, gathering together the ICMCB (Institute of Condensed Matter Chemistry of Bordeaux, a university/CNRS laboratory at France), the ZSW (Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg, a non-profit research institute at the interface between the university and the industry, at Germany), the SCPS (an R&D SME at France) and HOPPECKE (an industrial battery manufacturer at Germany), plans an interpolation of whole value-chain of the electrochemical storage of energy, from the fundamentals to the application. This French-German consortium could setup solid foundations for future original collaborations in the field of robust battery technologies/concepts, and its transfer towards the European industry.

Many communities in developing regions suffer disproportionately from energy poverty and the effects of climate change. Females in these communities face additional threats, including exposure to harmful cooking emissions. LoCEL-H2 will address underlying causes of these issues by providing renewable, cost-effective, plug-n-play, and sustainable provision of electrical energy and access to clean fuels. Our integrated prosumer renewable energy solution will be developed in harmony with local communities’ needs; our SSH team will evaluate critical socioeconomic factors for use in system development and future rollout. It is our ambition to provide operational training for deployment communities and future local partners. LoCEL-H2 features three impressive technical innovations: 1) a unique, low-cost, hydrogen-based energy solution, the Battolyser, 2) a novel battery technology, with high performance and excellent circularity, 3) a decentralized, peer-to-peer, prosumer microgrid designed holistically to facilitate sustainable rollout. Following system-level integration & validation (via a virtual pilot and a pre-pilot in Asia at TRL-7), the LoCEL-H2 team will deploy two full-scale TRL-8 pilots in Africa (Côte d'Ivoire and Zambia), including physical, digital, and social tools, achieving TRL-8 by the end of the current project. Our team’s existing commercial networks—Asian and African—will enable the further post-project commercial rollout of LoCEL-H2, boosting European export potential in sustainable energy solutions.