Lowering the carbon footprint of the domestic sector

 

Quantifying the Economic and Consumer Value Benefits of eRoaming in the UK's EV Charging Ecosystem

Avik Datta 

The UK's public charging infrastructure must be rapidly expanded to meet the growing demand of EV drivers without access to private charging facilities. Automatic national & international roaming in mobile telephony has positively demonstrated the benefits of providing seamless national & international coverage to consumers without operators having to build multiple overlay networks to meet that demand. The object of the thesis is to apply the lessons learnt with mobile telephony to provide quantifiable evidence of potential cost avoidance, revenue streams, and consumer benefits, if the industry & UK policy makers were to collectively pursue nationwide adoption of automated eRoaming.

Supervisors:

• Dr Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Rupert J. Myers, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London

 

Modelling Residential Energy Demand with Limited Observability of Occupant Behaviour

Christopher Tambua 

Data protection can make it difficult to collect detailed data on occupant behaviour in residential estates. Still, this data is fundamental to generate accurate models of the effect of building retrofits on energy consumption. This is a challenge for local authorities willing to pre-emptively assess the benefits of retrofitting social housing estates. Thus, there is value in identifying approaches that use the available data from a limited number of dwellings in conjunction with household activity data from publicly available datasets (time-use and travel demand surveys) to develop reliable occupants’ behaviour models for use in building energy demand modelling of residential estates.

Supervisors:

• Dr Edward O’Dwyer, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Aruna Sivakumar, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Nicolo Daina, Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London

 

Modelling and control approaches for decarbonisation of the residential built environment

Despo Atalioti

Climate change and the increasing energy demand are main challenges for the modern world, with residential built environment being a major contributor of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. Aim of the paper is to explore the building domain and provide a brief review of different storage technologies that can aid the decarbonization of the sector, with particular interest in battery energy storage and their operating characteristics. This project provides a realistic model, that evaluate under which conditions battery storage should be operated to maximize the economic benefits and prolong battery life when battery degradation is taken into consideration in the decision framework and measure the potential environmental benefits or impacts that are associated with the system, when battery embodied carbon footprint is included.

Supervisor:

• Dr Edward Dwyer, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

 

Challenges with the expansion of fast-charging infrastructure in Alaska

Ilya Turchaninov 

The impacts of climate change on Alaska have are becoming more noticeable each year, with temperatures rising twice as fast as in the rest of the United States. While climate change mitigation strategies have been conceived in multiple communities across Alaska, their implementation has been minimal. The transport sector is one of the largest emitters in the state; however, the electrification of transport faces unique challenges due to Alaska's harsh climate and long distances between communities. My work focuses on the role of and challenges with expanding public charging infrastructure in the state of Alaska to promote transport electrification of private vehicles.

Supervisors:

• Dr Koen van Dam, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Gonzalo Bustus Turu, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London

 

Evaluation of Retrofit Strategies for Supermarkets through Dynamic Simulation Modelling

Margrethe Gjerull 

A large existing building stock has to improve energy efficiency and gain enhanced building performance if the net zero agenda is to be reached. This project has the objective to assess the impact that passive and active design strategies have on reducing the energy intensity in commercial buildings, with the aim of informing the carbon mitigation potential such options have for a multi property estate operator. Retrofit strategies are evaluated for an archetypal building representative of Sainsbury's Central London building stock through Dynamic Simulation Modelling.

Supervisors:

• Dr Salvador Acha, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Rupert Myers, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London

 

Combined organic rankine cycle and heat pump systems for domestic heating sector

Mirra Qi

At present, heating accounts for ~50% of the total energy consumption and ~30% of the total carbon emissions in the UK, of which around 80% has been utilised in domestic households or other buildings. Since the UK has committed to the target of reducing all greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050, actions have been required to decarbonise this sector. This project investigates an innovative combined organic Rankine cycle (ORC) and heat pump system used as domestic heating technology. Through certain parametric analysis and case studies, the thermodynamic and economic performances of this technique is evaluated.

Supervisors:

• Prof Christos Markides, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Dr Sian Jong, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London
• Mr Andreas Olympios, Department of Chemical Engineering, Imperial College London