Established in September 2013 and funded for four years, TEDDINET is a research network examining the interactions of people with digital technologies and the potential for smart metering to transform energy demand in the home and at work. TEDDINET’s primary purpose is to create added value and enhance the impact of 22 individual research projects funded under the ‘Transforming Energy Demand through Digital Innovation’ (TEDDI) and ‘Transforming Energy Demand in Buildings through Digital Innovation’ (BuildTEDDI) programmes. Sponsored by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), these 22 projects encompass 26 (UK) universities, 75 partners from industry and the housing sector, and over 200 researchers from engineering, informatics, design and social sciences.
Present infrastructure service delivery, characterized by isolated supply streams for an uncontrolled demand, is uneconomical, inefficient, and ultimately unsustainable. What kinds of alternatives can be identified and implemented? In this project, we research and promote the establishment of Multi-Utility Service Companies, or MUSCos.
This project will develop improved methodologies and tools for assessing and providing more detailed information on complex system-user interactions, which will be further implemented in an integrated framework for system state identification, system or plant/component condition assessment and evaluation of the overall system performance (all currently performed in a number of separate studies).
LEANWIND is a 4-year project that started in December 2013. It is led by a 31-partner consortium and has been awarded €10 million by the European Commission, but its total value amounts to €15 million.
The primary LEANWIND objective is to provide cost reductions across the offshore wind farm lifecycle and supply chain through the application of lean principles and the development of state of the art technologies and tools.
The increasing amounts of renewable energy present on the national grid reduce C02 emissions caused by electrical power but they fit into an electrical grid designed for fossil fuels. Fossil fuels can be turned on and off at will and so are very good at matching variations in load. Renewable energy in the form of wind turbines is more variable (although that variability is much more predictable than most people think) and there is a need for existing power plants to operate much more flexibly to accommodate the changing power output from wind, tidal and solar power.
Development of a very sound expertise on CO2 transportation infrastructure
Identification and understanding of uncertainties during integration of CO2 capture, compression, injection and reservoir units together with CO2 transportation system
Provide industry and academia with the required technical knowhow in this context
EURECA, the Effects of Utilisation in Real-time on Electricity Capacity Assessments, investigates the operating regimes of thermal power plants in future generation portfolios with large amounts of variable renewable energy sources (VRE). The impacts of additional VRE and energy storage capacity on the operating profiles and flexibility of thermal power plans are investigated using a unit commitment and energy storage optimisation model.
MARINET, the Marine Renewables Infrastructure Network, is a network of research centres and organisations that are working together to accelerate the development of marine renewable energy technologies - wave, tidal and offshore-wind. It is co-financed by the European Commission specifically to enhance integration and utilisation of European marine renewable energy research infrastructures and expertise. MARINET offers periods of free-of-charge access to world-class R&D facilities & expertise and conducts joint activities in parallel to standardise testing improve testing capabilities and enhance training & networking.
Marine energy should make a substantial contribution to the UK renewable energy target of 30% electricity by 2020. Tidal stream turbines are a more mature technology than wave energy devices while the potential of wave energy is considerable. There is a growing capability and confidence in the loading and performance of marine energy devices in operating conditions as designs rapidly develop. However knowledge of extreme loading is less mature and indeed there is some uncertainty about their origin.
