• Energy Research
• 2016 close

Tackling climate change, providing energy security and delivering sustainable energy solutions are major challenges faced by civil society. The social, environmental and economic cost of these challenges means that it is vital that there is a research focus on improving the conversion and use of thermal energy. A great deal of research and development is continuing to take place to reduce energy consumption and deliver cost-effective solutions aimed at helping the UK achieve its target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050. Improved thermal energy performance impacts on industry through reduced energy costs, reduced emissions, and enhanced energy security. Improving efficiency and reducing emissions is necessary to increase productivity, support growth in the economy and maintain a globally competitive manufacturing sector. In the UK, residential and commercial buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the UK's total non-transport energy use, with space heating and hot water accounting for almost 80% of residential and 60% of commercial energy use. Thermal energy demand has continued to increase over the past 40 years, even though home thermal energy efficiency has been improving. Improved thermal energy conversion and utilisation results in reduced emissions, reduced costs for industrial and domestic consumers and supports a more stable energy security position. In the UK, thermal energy (heating and cooling) is the largest use of energy in our society and cooling demand set to increase as a result of climate change. The need to address the thermal energy challenge at a multi-disciplinary level is essential and consequently this newly established network will support the technical, social, economic and environmental challenges, and the potential solutions. It is crucial to take account of the current and future economic, social, environmental and legislative barriers and incentives associated with thermal energy. The Thermal Energy Challenge Network will support synergistic approaches which offer opportunities for improved sustainable use of thermal energy which has previously been largely neglected. This approach can result in substantial energy demand reductions but collaboration and networking is essential if this is to be achieved. A combination of technological solutions working in a multi-disciplinary manner with engineers, physical scientists, and social scientists is essential and this will be encouraged and supported by the Thermal Energy Challenge Network.

Much of the challenge for wind energy investors is that wind turbine technology is a capital-intensive industry. The capital costs of a wind power project can be broken down into several categories, where 13% is attributable to rotor blades, which become decisive in reducing costs. In order to increase the efficiency further, and to extract more energy, the trend is to make the turbines larger. However, as the length of current rotor blades increase, their associated cost and weight increase at a faster rate than the turbine’s potential power output, not being economically viable to produce turbines beyond a certain size. Furthermore, as blades get longer they are becoming increasingly difficult to manufacture and transport. In sum, the technical and commercial performance of wind turbines is currently limited by the rotor blade technology and to overcome this problem new design approaches and/or new materials and standardisation of production processes are needed. Leveraging on this market opportunity, Winfoor (WF) and Marstrom Composite (MC) are partnering to develop and introduce a new and ground-breaking technology to the wind energy market. The novel technology, Triblade, is a “3-in-1 blade” that will allow rotor blades to double current size and to reduce 80% weight, whilst reducing around 70% production costs and increasing ease of transport and installation. Commercialisation of Triblade will allow global wind manufacturers to produce larger and more efficient turbines, with simpler installation process and shorter time to market. The companies hold complementary skills, expertise and roles required to market this unique technology, being well positioned to guide Triblade to a sustained market entry and ceasing a market opportunity for an accumulated turnover of approx. €87 million in a period of 5 years.

The aim of the project is to integrate Soltropy’s patented freeze tolerance solution, developed for vacuum tube solar thermal collectors, with AES Ltd’s (AES Solar) flat plate solar thermal collectors. This will help to significantly reduce the installed cost of their solar thermal systems. Most solar thermal systems in the UK do not run water directly through the collector panels as it can cause freeze damage. Instead they run an antifreeze fluid through the collector which means that when a new solar thermal system is installed a perfectly good tank is replaced by a new hot water tank with a heat exchanger. This can double the price of the installed system due to the new tank and additional labour costs. A new tank is not required with Soltropy’s solution which allows water to be used directly in the system. It works by using a compressible tube inside the copper piping which takes up the expanded volume of the water if/when it freezes. The cost savings made from not needing a new hot water cylinder and from the reduced installation time will lead to a steep reduction in the installed cost of solar thermal systems

In the current context of more than 50% dependency on energy imports, increasing fuel and electricity prices and climate change threats, Europe is in a great need to foster its internal production of renewable energy. Small wind can play an important role in meeting this challenge by providing reliable decentralized renewable energy. However, there are a number of technical and economic barriers the small wind industry needs to overcome in order to become fully competitive. These include low performances in urban environments with slow and turbulent winds, high noise levels, need for reliable safety systems to avoid over-speeding, risks to birds and high upfront investments for the purchase and installation of the technology. Existing market solutions only cover a certain range of wind speeds and have low performances in slow winds. They also cause uncomfortable noise with levels that can reach 60dBA - above WHO standards (40 – 55 dBA) - while posing a collision hazard for birds during flight. In economic terms, the average final installed costs of a small wind turbine are around €10,000 to €15,000. SEESWIND is the first technology in the small wind market that offers solutions to cover the full range of winds and user demands thanks to its modular and easy to install (plug & play) configuration, ensuring a silent (0 dBA), efficient and safe performance while reducing by 10-40% the overall final cost for the user. SEESWIND’s feasibility study will aim at exploring our commercial strategy, including the definition of modules with highest commercial interest, technical feasibility and markets analyses, as well as a ‘freedom to operate’ study, in order to define our SEESWIND business plan. SEESWIND will be out in the market by 2018 at a selling price of € 6,300. We expect a six fold increase of our sells between 2018 and 2023, which with a 30% margin will provide €9.3 million benefits in five years. This will allow a Return of Investment (ROI) rate of 3.4.

REEEM aims to gain a clear and comprehensive understanding of the system-wide implications of energy strategies in support of transitions to a competitive low-carbon EU society. Comprehensive technology impact assessments will target the full integration from demand to supply and from the individual to the entire system. It will further address its trade-offs across society, environment and economy along the whole transition pathway. The strong integration of stakeholder involvement will be a key aspect of the proposal. The assessments performed within REEEM will focus on integrated pathways, which will be clustered and categorised around two focal points: the four integrated challenges of the Integrated Roadmap of the Strategic Energy Technology (SET)-Plan and the five dimensions of the Energy Union. Case studies will further serve to investigate details and highlight issues that cannot be resolved at a European level. A range of outputs will target the specific needs of various stakeholder groups and serve to broaden the knowledge base. These include, among others, Policy Briefs, Integrated Impact Reports, Case Study reports and Focus Reports on economy, society and environment. A focus on technology research, development and innovation will be included through the development of Technology Roadmaps with assessments of the Innovation Readiness Level of technologies. Further, a set of enabling tools will help to disseminate and actively engage stakeholders, including a Stakeholder Interaction Portal, a Pathways Diagnostic Tool and an Energy System Learning Simulation. Access to all work developed and transparency in the process will be guiding principles within this project exhibited by, for example, providing open access to a Pathways Database.

The Hi-ThermCap project offers a solution for the macro-encapsulation of phase-change materials (PCM) for use in gaseous and aqueous systems as a heat transfer medium. The expected outcome of this innovation project is to put at the market’s disposal a unique solution for thermal energy storage in heating and cooling systems in Europe. The heating industry is recognized as the sector with the biggest energy-saving potential in Europe. In the low temperature range of -20 to +100°C, most of the thermal energy amounts are required and then discarded, in particular in our buildings and industries. PCM are recognized among the key materials to save these huge energy and – at the same time – CO2 amounts. They can run through a reproducible phase-change at a substance-specific temperature, during which the thermal energy is either stored in very large amounts or returned at a constant temperature. Since decades, an adequate method is being sought to transfer PCM into a user-friendly form. Both existing micro- and macro-encapsulation solutions for PCM storage have until now revealed not industrially and economically viable enough for a broad application. The most common solution in use in Europe is sensible heat storage (e.g. water storage tank) that has a low energy density and thermal storage capacity. ESDA offers an affordable, easy-of-use, high-capacity and high-performance solution in the form of a PCM-filled capsule able to function in combination with all heat exchangers, including renewable energy technologies. The markets addressed are the high-volume heating and cooling market for residential and service sector buildings in Europe, but also the very promising industrial heating and cooling market. ESDA first calculations foresee a large impact in the application with solar thermal collectors and heat pumps, with a cumulated turnover of €2,256M and additional 75 job creations at strategic European locations within the first 6 years after project completion.

This project will develop low cost and scalable solution–based coating techniques to yield electrically tunable films with macroscopic crystalline domains of both organic–inorganic perovskite and organic semiconductors. These layers will be used to prepare solution processed hybrid perovskite-based photovoltaic (PV) devices surpassing 20 % solar-to-electricity power conversion efficiency, to provide a low cost and renewable energy supply. The researcher will carry out the processing and characterization of the materials at Professor Zhenan Bao's laboratory at Stanford University. Professor Bao is a world leader in using solution deposition techniques to tune the physical and electronic properties of solution-processed semiconductors for use in FETs, and is well suited to extend this approach to perovskite PV. The skills and knowledge obtained at Stanford University will be brought back to Professor Henry Snaith's laboratory at Oxford University and to Oxford Photovoltaics ltd to prepare low cost, scalable perovskite PV with enhanced macroscopic crystal properties and performance. Professor Snaith is recognized as one of the pioneers in perovskite based PV, and is thus excellently placed to guide the researcher in the development of PV with superior performance for eventual employment as large-scale energy supply. This project will form a unique union of two world leading research groups with complementary expertise. There is great potential for the transfer of skills, generation of intellectual property, and industrial involvement within the EU via the ISIS program at Oxford University, and the company Oxford Photovoltaics of which Professor Snaith is the CTO.

The excessive energy consumption that Europe is faced with, calls for sustainable resource management and policy-making. Amongst renewable sources of the global energy pool, wind energy holds the lead. Nonetheless, wind turbine (WT) facilities are conjoined with a number of shortcomings relating to their short life-span and the lack of efficient management schemes. With a number of WTs currently reaching their design span, stakeholders and policy makers are convinced of the necessity for reliable life-cycle assessment methodologies. However, existing tools have not yet caught up with the maturity of the WT technology, leaving visual inspection and offline non-destructive evaluation methods as the norm. This proposal aims to establish a smart framework for the monitoring, inspection and life-cycle assessment of WTs, able to guide WT operators in the management of these assets from cradle-to-grave. Our project is founded on a minimal intervention principle, coupling easily deployed and affordable sensor technology with state-of-the-art numerical modeling and data processing tools. An integrated approach is proposed comprising: (i) a new monitoring paradigm for WTs relying on fusion of structural response information, (ii) simulation of influential, yet little explored, factors affecting structural response, such as structure-foundation-soil interaction and fatigue (ii) a stochastic framework for detecting anomalies in both a short- (damage) and long-term (deterioration) scale. Our end goal is to deliver a “protection-suit” for WTs comprising a hardware (sensor) solution and a modular readily implementable software package, titled ETH-WINDMIL. The suggested kit aims to completely redefine the status quo in current Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition systems. This pursuit is well founded on background work of the PI within the area of structural monitoring, with a focus in translating the value of information into quantifiable terms and engineering practice.

The NESTER proposal aims in upgrading the scientific and innovation performance of the Cyprus Institute (CyI) in the field of Solar-Thermal Energy (STE). The upgrade will be achieved by embedding the Institute’s activities in a network of excellence, which will provide access to the latest know-how and facilities, train CyI’s scientific and technical personnel and link it with the European Industry. The substantial investments made/planned by CyI in infrastructure and personnel will thus become more efficient and competitive allowing claim to international excellence. The geopolitical placement of Cyprus offers excellent opportunities for cultivating a research and innovation niche in Solar Technologies. At the same time the remoteness of the corresponding centres of Excellence of EU is a major impediment. The NESTER proposal strives to enhance the advantages and ameliorate the disadvantages of this geographical placement. The NESTER network comprises of three leading institutions in the field of solar energy research (CIEMAT, ENEA, PROMES/CNRS and RWTH – Aachen). They possess a formidable know how in this field and operate some of the most important facilities, worldwide. The resulting enhanced capabilities and status of CyI would in turn reflect positively on developing the knowledge economy of Cyprus. It will also enhance the positioning of Cyprus as an important player in applied scientific research at the interface of the European and Middle East/North Africa regions. A number of activities are proposed in a detailed program which includes training and knowhow transfer, seminars and networking events with European and EMME partners, summer school activities, and public outreach and awareness and networking events. It is designed to ensure sustainability, evolution and continuation of the activities including the cooperation among the partners well beyond the expiration of the three-year funding period.