Imperial College London announces £7m low-carbon project

Imperial College London has announced a £7 million project as part of plans to build a low-carbon future in the UK.

The “Integrated Development of Low-Carbon Energy Systems” (IDLES) project is due to begin in November and will last for five years.

The project, which will also receive £5 million of industrial support, is being coordinated by Energy Futures Lab, a cross-discipline institute founded in 2005 based at the college.

Research will focus on understanding the “increasingly complex interactions between electricity, gas, heat and transport systems, resulting in a suite of software tools that can provide a range of possible futures for the UK’s energy system”.

Alongside the research will be policy advice on how to make each option a reality and insights into the technologies that will be needed to support it.

Ideas such as energy systems integration and achieving less waste and carbon emission will be explored.

For example, the excess electricity wind turbines produce can be used to produce hydrogen to decarbonise the gas grid or used to charge an electric vehicle’s battery, which can later provide balancing services to the electricity grid.

Professor Tim Green of Energy Futures Lab, the project’s leader, said: “We know that deep-decarbonisation of the UK’s energy system requires decisions and actions by a wide variety of people and organisations.

“The challenge for us is to generate the evidence for governments and businesses to guide their individual investments so we can achieve a resilient and cost-effective system.”

The team, which includes researchers from seven different departments, aims to “create a new way of thinking about our energy system” so the UK can build a low-carbon energy system while ensuring alignment with long-term national policy objectives.

The team will also include a range of partners from industry and government such as EDF Energy, ABB, National Grid and the Greater London Authority, as well as having the support of seven small-medium enterprises active in the energy space. This will ensure that the findings from IDLES will have an impact on the energy sector and be used by stakeholders across the energy sphere.

Professor Nick Jennings, vice-provost (research and enterprise) at Imperial College London, said: “The future of energy is clearly in integration but is not something you can tackle on your own.

“IDLES is a unique project and I am delighted to see it being led by the college and for there to be such strong industrial engagement with the work plan. From a personal perspective, I’m also delighted to be part of the team as a co-investigator on this research.”