School success in Scottish Green Energy Awards 2020

The School of Engineering enjoyed success in this year’s Scottish Green Energy Awards, with two category winners.

The Awards, organised by Scottish Renewables and headline-sponsored by EDF Renewables, is an annual celebration which honours the people, organisations and communities making outstanding contributions to the future of renewable energy.

The awards ceremony usually takes place in Edinburgh, but this year was held as a virtual online event on Thursday 26 November 2020.

Our winners 

  • The Universities of Edinburgh, Exeter, Strathclyde and the Scottish Association for Marine Sciences won the Contribution to Skills Award for the EPSRC and NERC Industrial CDT in Offshore Renewable Energy (IDCORE). Since its inception, the programme has trained over 60 engineering doctoral students to directly support the offshore renewable energy sector. 
  • James Ferguson won the Young and Inspiring Award. James is a Research and Development Engineer with the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC), and is completing an IDCORE-EMEC research project on the use of hydrogen generated from renewable energy in Orkney. This is investigating how much of the cutting-edge gas can be produced, and at what cost.

David Ingram, Director of IDCORE said: “IDCORE works because of the tremendous support we receive from sponsor companies ranging from small SMEs to large enterprises like EDF and test centres like EMEC.

“I am delighted that the CDT, which has trained over 60 doctoral level researchers in offshore renewables, has been recognised by Scottish Renewables and even more delighted that our amazing research engineers, like James Ferguson, are also getting the recognition they deserve. Our amazing alumni will be the people who drive the decarbonisation of the energy sector.”

Reacting to his award, James Ferguson commented: “I am delighted and honoured to receive this award. I would like to thank EMEC for the nomination, as well as my lead supervisors, past and present: Dimitri Mignard, Adam Robinson, Matthew Finn, Jon Clipsham and Scott Crawford. I would also like to thank Chris Goodall for drawing my attention to hydrogen technology through his book, The Switch, and the University of Edinburgh for leading the IDCORE programme.

“It is terrific to see the host of nominations in all the categories and I hope we can all work together to take responsibility for our amazing world and deliver a green energy system for Scotland – and beyond.”

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