Powering the future of healthcare through smarter and more sustainable batteries
Through its Smart Energy Storage Solutions programme, the University of South Wales is advancing a distinctive capability in battery engineering, artificial intelligence, and digital modelling, to address one of healthcare’s most complex technological challenges.
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Wearable and implantable medical devices demand energy-storage systems that balance safety, reliability, flexibility, and sustainability, requirements that cannot always be met through improvements in battery performance alone.
SESS integrates battery engineering, artificial intelligence, digital twins, and sustainability assessment within a systems-level approach.
Led by Dr Hammad Nazir, whose research uses digital engineering and battery science to address reliability, degradation, and lifecycle challenges, the programme examines technical, operational, and environmental factors together. This combination provides specialist expertise for investigating battery technologies beyond conventional materials-focused approaches.
An article by Dr Nazir and Darren Haines, published in peer-reviewed publication Future Batteries, assesses flexible, stretchable, and biodegradable batteries for healthcare applications.
It identifies a fundamental challenge: no emerging battery technology currently satisfies all key healthcare requirements simultaneously. The analysis clarifies engineering trade-offs and provides a framework for understanding priorities that can guide further research and technological innovation.
A distinctive SESS capability is the integration of artificial intelligence, computational modelling, and digital twins with battery engineering and sustainability assessment. This combination enables researchers to investigate battery behaviour virtually, examine degradation and reliability, and evaluate alternatives that would be costly or time-consuming to test experimentally.
These digital approaches support more efficient engineering decisions and provide pathways towards practical battery innovation.
Engagement with research and funding initiatives associated with organisations, including UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the British Council, forms part of SESS’s wider activities in battery technologies, digital engineering, and sustainability.
The programme supports organisations seeking expertise in battery reliability, degradation modelling, digital engineering, and sustainable energy-system design, creating opportunities to connect academic research with industrial and healthcare challenges.
The significance of this research extends beyond individual devices.
Its findings identify engineering requirements shared by researchers and technology developers internationally, informing research priorities and future innovation.
By connecting published research with advanced modelling capabilities, SESS contributes to understanding practical pathways between battery technology development and deployment in demanding healthcare applications.
For Wales, SESS contributes specialist capabilities relevant to advanced manufacturing, digital innovation, healthcare technologies, and sustainable energy systems. These areas are important to technological development and future industrial competitiveness.
The programme strengthens Welsh research expertise while supporting skills development and opportunities for collaboration with organisations working in emerging high-value sectors.
As the programme advances its work in battery modelling, digital engineering and sustainability, SESS is shaping understanding of the engineering and digital approaches required for next-generation healthcare energy-storage technologies, and strengthens USW’s contribution to safer, smarter, and more sustainable healthcare innovation.