Brunel leads UK-China energy research collaboration
As reported in Brunel Leading Edge starting in March 2013, Brunel will lead a £690k multidisciplinary collaborative research project with institutions from both the UK and China.
The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) funded project will bring together scientists from both countries to develop green technology that will revolutionise the way electricity is transmitted and distributed via interconnected national power grids. The three year funded project titled ‘Developing Scalable Smart Grid Infrastructure to Enable Secure Transmission System Control’ is part of a bigger investment in smart grids under the Energy Programme. With over £4 million funded by EPSRC and matched-resource funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), it is hoped the research findings will help both countries reduce their carbon footprint and improve their sustainable energy output. It is also expected that this initial funding will further develop into a long-term UK-China research collaboration stretching into 2023 and beyond.
Principal Investigator Dr. Gareth Taylor (School of Engineering and Design) will co-ordinate the project alongside Brunel Co-Investigator Dr. Maozhen Li (School of Engineering and Design) and Professor Haifeng Wang (School of Engineering and Design formerly Queen’s University of Belfast). Dr. Taylor commented: The proposed collaborative interdisciplinary smart grids research will investigate and develop scalable tools on secure high performance computing platforms that support large-scale, interoperable near to real-time data processing and data mining methods.
In the UK, National Grid has established the ‘Gone Green’ scenario, which results in 35% of UK electricity being sourced from renewable energy sources by 2020, such as intermittent and highly variable wind power for example, compared with about 6-7% today. Therefore, in the UK National Grid will face significant operational challenges over the next decade and beyond. Similarly in the Guangzhou province of China there now already exists one of the most technologically advanced and operationally complex transmission systems in the world. From 2005 onwards China Southern Power Grid has already experienced operationally complex challenges due to the impact of large-scale renewable energy source deployment on the transmission system.
David Willets, the Minister for Universities commented: “Science plays an increasingly important role in the transition to a low carbon economy. This international collaboration will bring together leading researchers from the UK and China to help develop the vital underpinning technology that both our nations need for a greener future.”
For further information contact: gareth.taylor@brunel.ac.uk
