About
Meeting our thermal energy needs in a sustainable way is one of the greatest challenges facing society as we transition to Net Zero. Heating accounts for about 37% of total UK carbon emissions, with 85% of UK homes heated by natural gas. Solutions for decarbonising the heating and cooling sector will rely on heat pumps powered by renewable electricity and hydrogen derived from renewables. Significant heat or electricity storage will be needed because of the variability of supply and increased loads, with heat storage the lower cost option.
“The scale of change involved for consumers, alongside our energy system and infrastructure, means that heating is arguably the most difficult of the major energy consuming sectors of the economy to decarbonise”
Clean Growth - Transforming Heating, BEIS (2018)
The Sustainable Thermal Energy Technologies (STET) group are experts in heat networks, heat conversion, heat storage and heat pumps. STET have secured £18.2M of external funding over the past six years, capitalising on the growing number of thermal energy calls from funders such as EPSRC, Innovate UK and BEIS. Project partners include SSE, Spirax Sarco Engineering plc and Sainsburys (all FTSE 100 companies).
The STET group consists of 5 academics, 2 PDRAs, a facilities manager, a technician and 3 PhDs, and has generated 12% of all School of Engineering research funding over the past decade. STET has also received capital investment of £7M over the past ten years from Science City and ERA, and now has 300 m2 of world-class facilities.
STET is currently in receipt of 14% of all Midlands ‘Energy’ EPSRC funding