Electronic & electrical engineeringMajor research projects

The Institute for Energy & Environment is a key partner in a broad range of multidisciplinary research projects funded by government, EU and industry.  These currently include:

Supergen Highly Distributed Energy Future

The SUPERGEN HiDEF project is being led by the University of Strathclyde in collaboration with academic partners at the Universities of Bath, Cardiff, Loughborough, Oxford and Imperial College. A number of leading industrial, consultancy and advisory organisations are also involved.

The HiDEF Consortium is developing the analytical, sustainability and economic evaluation tools that are required for a future decentralised power system, together with appropriate hardware and the coordination strategies for network interfacing. Such a power system will deliver sustainability and security through the widespread deployment of distributed energy resources (DERs), so will contribute to a low carbon future.

SUPERGEN FlexNet

SUERGEN FlexNet builds upon the achievements of FutureNet. It aims to create the next technical, economic, market design and public acceptance steps that will lead to the development of flexible networks.

Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy

Objectives of the Transition Pathways to a Low Carbon Economy project are:

  • to learn from past transitions to help explore future transitions and what might enable or avoid them
  • to design and evaluate transition pathways towards alternative socio-technical energy systems and infrastructures for a low carbon future
  • to understand and where appropriate model the changing roles, influences and opportunities of large and small 'actors' in the dynamics of transitions

Autonomic Power Systems:

The drivers that will shape the 2050 electricity network are numerous:

  • increasing energy prices
  • increased variability in the availability of generation due to renewable energy sources
  • increased utilisation due to growth in loads such as electric vehicles and heat pumps
  • increased customer participation in system operation

This four and a half year EPSRC Grand Challenge in Energy Networks research project is a consortium of 8 Universities led by Strathclyde. It proposes a new autonomic power system as the solution to addressing these challenges.

Transformation of the Top & Tail

‘Transforming the Top and Tail’ is a collaborative project between eight universities and is funded by the EPSRC Grand Challenge Programme. The project focuses on the physical infrastructure change in energy networks required to move the UK to a low carbon economy, and achieve the Government’s 2050 reduction in CO2 emissions target.

Northern Isles New Energy Solutions (NINES)

The NINES project aims to support Shetland’s sustainable energy future by developing and managing the electricity distribution network more effectively, to allow renewable energy to play a bigger part in meeting Shetland’s energy needs.

Flexible Networks for a Low Carbon Future

This project seeks to trial a combination of smart network interventions and customer energy efficiency measures at three network locations. The objective is to demonstrate how they can release capacity on the HV network, allowing greater take up of low carbon technologies without the need for expensive network reinforcement.

Capacity for Customers

This project trials techniques to avoid conventional network reinforcement for the connection of low carbon technologies and general demand growth by using the latent capacity of the high voltage (HV) and extra high voltage (EHV) networks.

EERA Wind Energy

The European Energy Research Alliance (EERA) Joint Programme Wind Energy was officially launched at the SET-Plan conference in Madrid in June 2010. The vision of the programme is to move towards a “virtual research centre” with a strategic approach to knowledge sharing and integration.

EERA SmartGrids

This joint programme was officially launched at the SET Plan Conference in Madrid in June 2010 It aims to address in a medium to long-term research perspective, one of the most critical areas directly relating to the effective acceleration of smart grid development and deployment.

Malawi Renewable Energy Acceleration programme (MREAP)

The Scottish Government commissioned a scoping study on Supporting Community Energy Development in Malawi in 2011 and the outcomes of that pointed to different programme activities that the Scottish Government might support. Those recommendations have been taken forward in the form of the Malawi Renewable Energy Acceleration Programme (MREAP).

MREAP is managed by the University of Strathclyde. Consisting of seven main partners, MREAP aims to accelerate the growth of community and renewable energy development in Malawi.