Award winner announcement
The winner of the Safety Innovation Award 2024 is The Faraday Institution for its Safebatt Project, which provides crucial contributions to lithium-ion battery safety.
As these batteries are essential to the UK's net-zero goals, SafeBatt's research is instrumental in ensuring their safe operation across a wide range of applications, including automotive, micro-mobility, stationary storage, and aerospace.
The SafeBatt team, a collaboration led by The Faraday Institution, includes seven universities – Oxford, University College London, King’s College London, Newcastle, Sheffield, Warwick, and Cambridge – working in partnership with industry experts.
Their efforts focus on advancing the understanding of battery failure modes and the mechanisms of failure propagation, with a strong emphasis on detecting and mitigating failure events like thermal runaway.
Using state-of-the-art instrumentation and innovative testing techniques, SafeBatt investigates how material properties can trigger safety issues and varied safety responses. The team has also developed models to predict thermal runaway, flame, and cell-to-cell propagation, offering invaluable insights for the designers of future battery systems.
In addition to research, SafeBatt has actively engaged with stakeholders, including government bodies and first responders, offering training and advisory support to enhance safety protocols.
The project has carried out more than 100 public and stakeholder engagement activities since 2021, including lectures, media interviews, and presentations, all aimed at raising awareness about battery safety.
Judges’ comments
The judges praised the entry for its “valuable and detailed scientific research, showing an inspiring amount of knowledge”, and were impressed that the project has been backed by the UK Government. Engagement with first responders during development differentiates this from other research that has been done and engaging with OPSS ensures the research feeds into shaping standards and regulation.
After collecting the award, lead researcher Professor Paul Christensen said: “SafeBatt is working on the next generation of batteries and battery chemistries, looking at the safety of sodium-ion batteries and solid-state batteries, which are believed to be the holy grail because they don’t have any organics in them.
“An in-depth understanding of the technology and the safety characteristics of these new batteries is essential if we are going to enable developers to innovate and engineer safer systems.”
The 2025 Award opens in Spring – enter by end of Aug to be in with the chance to win!
Get in touch to be notified when the 2025 award opens: ellen.vester@electricalsafetyfirst.org.uk