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Our research looks at distributed energy resources and innovation toward low carbon electricity. We look at waste management including heat recovery and thermal energy transition.
Current projects
THERMOS
Techno-economic Feasibility of Net-Zero Emission Solutions for Metal Heating. This feasibility project will demonstrate the potential to significantly improve the UK Steel Industry’s Carbon Footprint through direct changes and augmentation of systems and processes, and is highly aligned with GCRA 1 – Carbon Neutral Iron and Steelmaking. Specifically, THERMOS project will focus on the metal heating process and the proposed sustainable net-zero emission solutions (i.e. H2 fuelled metal heating processes and H2 use in reheat furnaces) are identified as complements to the existing SUSTAIN research activities.
Find out more about THERMOS on the SUSTAIN project website.
TWIN4HEAT
TWIN4HEAT will support the UK foundation industries to meet the UK Government's commitment for 2050 to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by engaging with academia, industry, policy makers and non-governmental organisations to identify and address challenges and opportunities to co-develop and adopt transformative technologies, business models and working practices.
More information on TWIN4HEAT is available on the EPSRC grant details page.
Green Hydrogen in Steel Manufacture
Led by British Steel Limited, UCL along with other partners EDF Energy, the Materials Processing Institute are collaborating on a feasibility study into switching its manufacturing processes from natural gas to green hydrogen.
OPTEMIN
The Optimising Energy Management in Industry project (OPTEMIN) focuses on optimisation approaches applicable to most energy-intensive industrial sectors, aiming to offer the greatest potential for energy demand reduction and decarbonisation.
OPTEMIN takes a whole systems approach to the optimisation of energy management in industry by considering energy flows and demand reduction at three different levels:
- individual process or plant level;
- integration and optimisation of energy flows across the whole site;
- interactions with national energy supply system (grid electricity and gas).
The approach will satisfy overall economic and environmental performance considerations by adoption of technologies, particularly waste heat recovery, and energy integration.
More information on OPTEMIN is available on the UCL project details page.
Past projects
- Cryohub
CryoHub was an EU-funded project to develop and investigate the potential of large scale cryogenic energy storage at refrigerated warehouses and food factories.
More information on Cryohub.
- CASCADE
Complex Adaptive Systems, Cognitive Agents and Distributed Energy: A complexity science-based investigation into the smart grid concept.
More information on CASCADE.