Details of Grant

EPSRC Reference:

EP/T022701/1

Title:

GREEN-ICEs: Generation of REfrigerated ENergy Integrated with Cold Energy storage

Principal Investigator:

Other Investigators:

Sciacovelli, Dr A	Paul, Professor MC	Ding, Professor Y
Yu, Professor Z	Xu, Dr B

Researcher Co-Investigators:

Project Partners:

CAL Gavin Ltd	E.ON Energy Solutions Ltd	Flexible Power Systems
Oxford nanoSystems Ltd	Star Refrigeration Ltd

Department:

Chemical Engineering

Organisation:

University of Birmingham

Scheme:

Standard Research

Starts:

01 September 2020

Ends:

31 August 2023

Value (£):

1,204,099

EPSRC Research Topic Classifications:

Energy - Conventional

EPSRC Industrial Sector Classifications:

Energy

Related Grants:

Panel History:

Panel Date	Panel Name	Outcome
13 Feb 2020	Decarbonising Heat	Announced

Summary on Grant Application Form

The provision of cold is a vital foundation of modern society to underpins many aspects of modern life, consumes up to 14% of the UK's electricity, and is also responsible for around 10% of UK's greenhouse gas emissions, including both CO2 associated with their power consumption and leakage of refrigerants with high Global Warming Potential (GWP). In order to achieve net-zero emission target in 2050 in the UK, we must significantly decarbonise the cooling sector.

The decarbonisation of the cooling section requires to tackle two key challenges. Firstly, the leakage of traditional, refrigerants with high GWP is a key issue of the greenhouse gas emission of the cooling sector. It is, therefore, necessary to substitute them with low GWP natural refrigerant such as CO2. Secondly, the high-power consumption of the cooling sector also results in greenhouse gas emission if non-renewable power is consumed. Hence, cost-effective cold storage capacity will need to be deployed to maximise the use of intermittent renewable energy and cheap off-peak electricity. The recent study concluded that the addition of cold storage can potentially provide a 43% decrease in peak period consumption.

In response to the challenges identified above, this project aims to develop a novel integrated system for cold energy generation and storage using CO2 hydrate as both refrigerant and storage material, contributing to the decarbonisation of the cooling sector in the UK and more widely the global. The multidisciplinary consortium, consisting of six leading researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt, processes a wide range of well-balanced expertise including chemical engineering, thermodynamics, heat transfer, CFD, and economics to address several key scientific and technical challenges, and is further supported by several leading industrial partners to maximise knowledge exchange and impact delivery.

Key Findings

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Potential use in non-academic contexts

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Impacts

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Summary
Date Materialised

Sectors submitted by the Researcher

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Project URL:

Further Information:

Organisation Website:

http://www.bham.ac.uk