About Us

SynchroStor is an engineering R&D business founded in 2017 with the express purpose of developing a cost-effective grid-scale energy storage technology using pumped heat.

Support

Our research and development has been supported privately by our founders and industry stakeholders but also by InnovateUK through the Catalyst programme and by Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS) through the Energy Storage Cost Reduction Competition in 2019 and more recently through the BEIS Long Duration Energy Storage (LODES) Stream 2 Phase 1 programme which ran from January to May 2022.

In 2023 SynchroStor secured Phase 2 support from the LODES programme. This allows us to scale up the R&D effort and accelerate our route to demonstrating the technology.

Development Status

So far, we have focused on de-risking the most innovative sub-systems in the PTES. Comprehensive numerical modelling has been undertaken and proof of concepts have been demonstrated.

The LODES Phase 1 programme in 2022 allowed SynchroStor to develop a detailed Feasibility Study for the technology. This scope of work also included a market study, system costing, CO2 abatement analysis and a technology risk assessment. This work was well aligned with SynchroStor’s roadmap and has provided more evidence to support our plans for whole-system demonstration.

Under the LODES Phase 2 programme, SynchroStor’s objective is to further develop the sub-systems and ultimately combine these in a 1MW x 10MWh pilot demonstrator. We expect a pilot to validate the technology at TRL 6 while preparing for market entry.

The Team

The SynchroStor senior team has considerable experience of working in the startup environment, liaising with established contractors to provide specific expertise and design capacity as we grow. Our stakeholders bring the perspective from the end-users and the OEM. As such, our team is fully vertically integrated – from the designer to the end user.

Win Rampen

Founder & Technical Director

Win has over 40 years experience of leading the design of novel systems, primarily in complex fluid power systems for renewables, transport and off-road machinery commercialised through Artemis Intelligent Power.

Win founded SynchroStor in 2017 to explore a number of inventions which could dramatically improve on previous efforts to industrialise Brayton loop pumped heat systems.

Win holds the Chair of Energy Storage at the University of Edinburgh and is a Fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering, the RSE, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the RSA.

Carn Gibson

Chief Engineer

Carn has over 30 years of design experience. He has delivered diverse research and development projects both in academia and industry as well as designing robotic handling solutions and complex fluid power systems for marine energy concepts.

Carn has extensive hands-on workshop experience and will follow projects from inception through design, build, commissioning and handover to the end user.

Carn has been part of the SynchroStor since 2017 where he now leads the engineering design effort. Prior to this he provided fluid power consultancy at Quoceant after leading the hydraulics team at Pelamis Wave Power.

Jacob Ahlqvist

Managing Director

Jacob has worked in the energy industry for 20 years, developing innovative solutions for projects onshore and offshore. He has led concept designs from FEED to full-scale prototyping as well as delivered complex EPCI projects.

Jacob’s experience extends beyond engineering design, having worked on due diligence exercises for transactions of major power generation assets. Jacob has also worked in advisory roles to UK and Scottish Governments on various energy topics.

Jacob joined SynchroStor in 2019, after 5 years with Arup’s Energy Consultancy.

Chris Hannon

Project Manager

Chris is project managing the £9.4m LODES project awarded by UK government.

He has over 15 years of experience in product development and testing, working on and leading projects in the aerospace, automotive and medical device sectors. He has a mechanical engineering background, and his notable projects include hydraulic testing of battery packs for electric vehicles, flight testing of helicopter rotor blades, and leading the development of prototype surgical robot subassemblies.

Chris is a Fellow of the IMechE and joins Synchrostor after spending the last 7 years working for engineering consultancies.

Timothy Putzien

Research Engineer

Tim is leading the compressor expander machine development.

He has experience working on the development of a wide range of rotating machinery from large MW scale digital-hydraulic machines to high performance transmissions from the motorsport world.

Tim has a multifaceted background ranging from detailed computer based modelling and analysis over product development and full scale machine testing.

Alexis Dole

Senior Engineering Manager

Alexis has worked for 14 years in technology development, in the domains of renewable energy and energy saving with digital displacement technology.

As a mechanical engineer he worked on a range of aspects of rotating digital-hydraulic machines, with a strong focus on testing and application engineering.

As a senior engineering manager, Alexis has strong track records in the delivery of multi -million-pound development programs, managing multi-disciplinary engineering teams and external stakeholders.