• Energy Research
• 2016-2025close

Nuclear fission is currently internationally recognised as a key low carbon energy source, vital in the fight against global warming, which has stimulated much interest and recent investment. For example, RCUK's energy programme has identified nuclear fission as an essential part of the "trinity" of future fuel options for the UK, alongside renewables and clean coal. However, nuclear energy is controversial, with heartfelt opinion both for and against, and there is a real requirement to make it cleaner and greener. Large international programmes of work are needed to deliver safe, reliable, economic and sustainable nuclear energy on the scale required in both the short and long term, through Gen III+ & Gen IV reactor systems. A pressing worldwide need is the development of specific spent fuel reprocessing technology suitable for these new reactors (as well as for dealing with legacy waste fuel from old reactors). The REFINE programme will assemble a multidisciplinary team across five partner universities and NNL, the UK's national nuclear laboratory to address this fuel reprocessing issue. The consortium will carry out a materials research programme to deliver fuel reprocessing by developing materials electrosynthesis through direct oxide reduction and selective electrodissolution and electroplating from molten salt systems. Developing, optimising and controlling these processes will provide methods for, and a fundamental understanding of, how best to reprocess nuclear fuel. This is in addition to the development of techniques for new molten salt systems, new sensing and analysis technologies and the establishment of the kinetics and mechanisms by which molten salt processes occur. This will facilitate rapid process development and optimization, as well as the generation of applications in related areas. A key output of the programme will be the training and development of the multidisciplinary UK researchers required to make possible clean nuclear energy and generate complementary scientific and technological breakthroughs.

Over the lifetime of a wind turbine, operation and maintenance costs represent 25% of total levelised cost per kWh produced. The majority of these costs are attributed to the wind turbine’s blades, yet current methods of inspecting these blades are outdated and inefficient. Blade inspection procedures still largely relies on qualified inspectors roping down each blade to manually inspect for any flaws or defects present on the blade. This is clearly a very hazardous, time-consuming (5 hours), and expensive method (€1500). Other less used methods of blade inspection include capturing blade images from ground cameras and manual review by experts. However, poor image quality and strong backlight leaves many blade flaws undetected. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are now being used to take pictures of the blades from much closer up. Current UAV's however require dedicated experts for both flight control as well as image processing, analysis, and fault detection. Pro-Drone's integrated WindDrone Zenith’s solution is a breakthrough solution providing enabling 3-blade inspection in a single flight. Our technology solution is fully equipped with highly accurate inspection equipment hardware coupled with smart software. The software allows the UAV to be fly autonomously, avoid collisions, automatically detect any faults, and generate reports for the customer on each wind turbine inspected. Machine learning algorithms are used to continuously improve automated fault detection based on a growing database of captured images and their analysis. Our "BladeInsight" cloud reporting platform makes actionable reports available to our customers as part of this solution. Pro-Drone Zenith provides for a 50% direct cost saving, and decreases turbine inspection downtime by 6X, as compared to existing methods.

Offshore infrastructure is currently undertaking a leading role in the development of energy production systems. A key factor in this infrastructure refers to the continuously loaded cables, pipelines foundations and anchoring systems throughout their design life-time. Emphasising on the foundation of offshore wind turbine systems, large diameter piled foundation still seem to be the preferable solution. It is remarkable that 74.5% of the installed offshore wind turbines in 2018 are supported by monopiles, while the cost of this system is approximately 30% of the total. Up-to-date geotechnical engineering research efforts focusing on the following aspects: a) pile-soil interaction emphasising on the fundamental frequency of the system, b) soil damping, c) scour and evolution of pore-pressures, and d) long-term performance of the foundation. The aim of this thesis is to cover the latter aspect of this engineering problem, specifically, the long-term response analysis of large piled foundations. Looking now at the state-of-practice techniques, the well-known p-y curve method seems to underestimate the capacity of monopiles, as it has been illustrated by relatively recent research studies. This is because these methodologies are derived for smaller diameter piles which higher L/D ratios. Advanced Finite Element Analyses can be used to improve the existing p-y curves, as many aspects of this problem can be captured. In addition, the accumulation of displacements and the conditions which lead to a stable, meta-stable or unstable long-term response can be investigated. Large diameter piles with relatively small aspects ratios (L/D) are well-known as "rigid" or "short" piles. In such systems, the soil properties are of a great importance for the resultant response. However, these properties continuously alternate with the number of the applied cycles of loads resulting in the deterioration of the performance of the piled foundation. Prior to this effect, during the installation of the large piled foundations, the properties of the soil mass are disrupted, leading to densified or loosened zones. It is well-established from past research that the rate of degradation of cohesionless materials with different relative density is different. Therefore, this is a key aspect that needs to be considered in the simulation of the cyclic response of monopiles. For the purpose of analysing the cyclic response of the piled foundations considering the installation effects, two different models need to be developed with two different appropriate constitutive laws. The first one will be a model suitable to capture the high stress conditions and the changes in the voids ratio during installation, while the second model captures the long-term performance and degradation of sands. In this way, the rigorous computation of the cyclic response of piled foundations will be carried out.

Bioenergy is the main source of renewable energy today and it is expected to continue playing a key role in the decarbonisation of the European energy and transport sectors, a prerequisite to achieve the long-term targets of the EU, the Paris Agreement and sustainable development goals. The Implementation Plan of Action 8, Bioenergy and Renewable Fuels for Sustainable Transport (IP8) set detailed targets for the development, demonstration and scale-up of the sector. In order to achieve a step-change, six complementary stakeholders engaged in bioenergy and renewable fuels, joined forces to enable successful implementation within SET4BIO. The overall objective of SET4BIO is to support the full execution of the IP8, i.e. both for research and innovation lines and large-scale projects, acting as competence centre and complementary resource for the Implementation Working Group (IWG8). Industry, academia, institutes, EU Member States and Associated Countries as well as the European Institutions and functions play a key role for successful implementation of IP8. SET4BIO will propose solutions and pathways to overcome essential barriers identified in the IP8 and will engage and coordinate key stakeholders through a participatory approach. The project will identify and promote best practices for development, demonstration and scale-up through a competition-based innovation approach, monitor development, develop a financing roadmap as well as provide policy recommendations and disseminate results. A wide-ranging network must strive towards the same goal and SET4BIO will facilitate the coordination. Several beneficiaries are involved in the IWG8 set up by the European Commission. Commitment and understanding of SET-Plan ambitions on Industry and Member State/Associated Country level will be crucial to the successful implementation. SET4BIO will take an active role in supporting IWG8 and be a catalyst to facilitate the implementation of the actions which are set out in the IP8.

Each year, the wind sector is missing out on huge profits due to wind turbines failures of about €200 million in Spain, €700 million in Europe and €2,900 million globally. Taking operation cost into account, losses are actually triple. Adding the currently unfavorable economic situation and policies restricting the sales price, the only way for wind farms operators, maintenance companies, financial institutions, and insurance companies as well as investors to remain profitable is to improve maintenance and operation processes. Smartive is a company whose aim is to develop cloud-based software tools in order to improve the productivity of wind farms. This can be achieved based on newly available technology that allows the detection of anomalous operations by effectively programming preventive and corrective maintenance operations. Diagnosis and prognosis tools will allow adjusting operations and consequently the productivity of wind farms. The overall objective of the Phase II Cloud Diagnosis project is to scale-up our SMARTGEAR technology that allows predictive maintenance to optimize the management and operation of wind parks. Specifically, we will improve the current device by introducing communication protocols allowing extracting data from multiple devices that are placed in wind turbines and by adding transducers. Also, our SMARTCAST cloud diagnosis algorithms need to be improved. These technological improvements will allow us to roll out our solution on a global basis as we will differentiate ourselves from the competition as it will taken into account more data (not only vibration analysis), merge indicators, be cloud based rather than local and be more affordable. Based on our market research, we have forecasted the sales and defined a roadmap for commercialization, including the development of an innovative business model that will allow us to reach all target segments. CloudDiagnosis is of strategic interest to us as the next logical step in our growth.

Investments in energy efficiency in the residential sector (27% of EU final energy demand) may also provide economic benefits at different levels of the economy. These benefits may not be realized because of barriers, which are typically reflected in implied discount rates. BRISKEE (Behavioural Response to Investment Risks in Energy Efficiency) provides evidence-based input to energy efficiency policy design and evaluation, thereby supporting the market uptake of energy efficiency technologies in the EU residential sector. It contributes to the work programme by addressing the interrelations between microeconomic factors, sectoral energy demand and macroeconomic effects, relying on a consistent methodological framework implemented in 5 work packages: • Provide empirical evidence for the magnitudes of discount rates accounting for differences across households, technologies and countries, and assess their effects on the diffusion of efficiency technologies in the EU (micro-level). A multi-country survey (1000 interviews per country) will be carried out and analyzed econometrically. • Explore the impact of time discounting and risk preferences (and of policies affecting those factors) on the diffusion of energy efficient technology and energy demand in the EU residential sector until 2030 (meso-level). Established bottom-up vintage stock models will be employed for appliances (FORECAST-Residential) and for buildings (Invert/EE-Lab). • Explore the macro-level impacts of changes in microeconomic decision-making and of energy efficiency policy on employment, GDP and exports in the EU until 2030. This involves simulations with an established macro-economic model for the EU (ASTRA). • Provide evidence-based recommendations for key energy efficiency policies and input for impact assessments and policy analysis at the three levels of analysis. • Communicate and disseminate empirical findings to policy makers, national experts, the research community and the general public.