Well done Peter Dearman ... From garage invention to global game-changing innovations

An engine that runs on nothing but air does sounds like a hoax.  That’s what Lord Sugar thought when Peter Dearman wrote him a one line email at the Mirror to try to get some publicity for his car running on liquid air.

“Dear Sir Alan, I have invented a car engine which uses liquid nitogen or air as fuel. It uses no fossil fuel, produces no pollution and is cheap to manufacture.”

Lord Sugar replied in his column “I was not sure whether the email was one of my pals trying to wind me up until I looked at your website …. I'm no expert, but if there are any engineers who wish to have a peep, look at the website and get in touch with Peter. But if you [Peter] are trying to pull the wool over their eyes, forget it, as any credible organisation will just have a good laugh.”

But Peter is a classic British garage inventor who is neither mad nor a hoaxer; just sees the world very differently.

Yesterday Professor John Loughhead, Chief Scientific Adviser at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) switched on the Highview Power 5MW/15MWh grid-scale liquid air energy storage (LAES) system at Bury, near Manchester. Demand response aggregator KiWi Power will be able to draw energy from the LAES plant to power about 5,000 average-sized homes for around three hours. The plant will demonstrate how LAES can provide a number of reserve, grid balancing and regulation services.

Yet the opportunity is far greater: LAES technology can scale to hundreds of Megawatts in line with the energy demand of large cities. With LAES technology now being proven at scale, the plant paves the way for the wider adoption of LAES technology globally. True long-duration energy storage is critical to enable the broader deployment of renewable energy; overcome the intermittency of solar and wind energy; help smooth peaks and troughs in demand; and provide the UK with a stable and secure source of homegrown energy.

At the other end of the spectrum, Dearman is road-testing a zero-emission transport emission unit running on liquid nitrogen with Sainbury’s, Unilever, Marks & Spencer and others  - the first of a portfolio of products delivering clean cold and power. As Paul Polman, CEO of Unilever tweeted following a 6-month trial in 2018 in Holland, in which a Dearman-cooled trailer successfully delivered premium ice cream and other frozen grocery products “Great partnership with @Unilever and @Dearmanltd working to our goal of making the transport system as green as possible – win for the environment and for business #carbonfree”. Dearman, with international partners, also has two Newton funded programmes in India and Malaysia; one for data-centres and one for zero-emission cold chain.

Additionally, the University of Birmingham secured government support for the Birmingham Centre for Cryogenic Energy Storage (BCCES): a multi- million project including bespoke cold / thermal and cryogenic energy storage and engine laboratories and equipment and test-beds. The University of Birmingham and the research arm of State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC) have unveiled a Lab on Energy Storage Research in thermal and cryogenic energy storage and their integration and application in energy networks.

While even the EU is in on the act giving a €7 million European grant for the Cryo-hub, a pan-European consortium of researchers led by London South Bank University to research the potential efficiency gains that might be achieved by integrating Liquid Air Energy Storage with existing cooling and heating equipment found in refrigerated warehouses and food processing plants.

All this from Peter’s garage in Bishop Stortford …