The new rules will help households generate and store electricity and sell it back to the National Grid.

The first phase of a four-year £246m Government investment into battery technology has been launched in a move that could help bring down household electricity bills.

The long-term vision includes creating giant battery facilities around the National Grid to store excess wind and solar energy for when demand rises.

In addition, new rules will help households with solar panels to generate and store their own electricity with new battery technology and sell it back to the Grid when they do not need it. They will also reduce costs for people and businesses who power down appliances at peak times and use electricity at cheaper times.

The Government and Energy regulator Ofgem estimate that consumers could save between £17bn and £40bn by 2050.

Business and Energy Secretary Greg Clark unveiled details of the first phase, known as the Faraday Challenge, on Monday.

This includes a £45m competition to establish a centre for battery research which he said would help make the UK a world leader in the design, development and manufacture of electric batteries. This will be spearheaded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to bring the best minds and facilities together to create a ‘battery institute’ to make products more accessible and affordable.

A three-month consultation earlier this year on an industrial strategy to increase UK productivity and growth attracted more than 1,900 written responses from businesses and organisations.

A shift to cleaner energy and technologies such as electric cars has made the design, development and manufacture of batteries a top industrial priority.  Mr Clark said:

“A smarter energy system will create new businesses and high-skilled jobs, while making sure our infrastructure is able to cope with demand.”

Gareth Redmond-King, head of climate and energy at WWF, said battery storage was a “game-changer” in the ability to produce clean power from renewables.

“These technologies give us flexibility to run on solar when the sun isn’t shining, and be powered by wind when it is still.

“It will support the transition to electric cars and enable our homes to be more efficient – which means cheaper, as well as cleaner and greener energy.”

Read more: Sky News

UK to pioneer energy innovation through batteries in homes as energy department announces £246m research funding

Batteries and renewable power sources are on the verge of bringing about an “epochal transformation” of the UK that could make energy clean, abundant and very cheap, according to a cabinet minister.

As the government unveiled plans for a more flexible energy system and £246m of funding for battery research, Greg Clark told the Guardian that a smarter grid would “radically” bring down bills.

“Energy, for the last 100 years, for good reasons, we’ve rationed the consumption of [because] it’s been very expensive and environmentally-damaging to consume fossil fuels. [But] given the possibilities we are on the cusp of at the moment, we might move to a world where energy is clean and abundant,”

said the business secretary.

Storing intermittent renewable power in batteries so it was ready when the grid needed it would bring down costs for everyone, including vulnerable and low income energy consumers, he said.

“If only we can capture it [power from the sun and wind] then we can go from energy being a worrying cost to people, to being, if not free, then very cheap,”

Clark said, speaking in Birmingham on Monday as he put energy at the centre of the government’s industrial strategy.

Read more: The Guardian