Cranfield Opens New Clean Energy Research Centre
Cranfield University’s new £2 million high-tech energy laboratory was officially opened on Tuesday by Jonathan Holyoak, Head of Policy for the Office of Carbon Capture and Storage, on behalf of Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) Ministers.
The Energy Technology Laboratory houses a range of near industrial-scale equipment for research and development of clean and renewable energy technologies. The facilities support research into carbon capture and transport systems, clean fossil fuel technologies, bioenergy and energy-from-waste. They are widely used for process development, studies into materials performance and the reliability of systems and components such as the integrity of heat exchangers, gas turbine blades and CO2 pipelines.
John Oakey, Professor of Energy Technology and Head of Cranfield’s Centre for Energy and Resource Technology, said: “This new laboratory, which is available for industry and other universities to use, is a great leap forward in the UK's research capability in clean energy technologies. With the range of new equipment, much of which is unique to Cranfield, we are able to develop and test ideas through to pre-commercial scale across a wide spectrum of energy from technologies.”
A study by the Carbon Capture and Storage Cost Reduction Task Force published last week showed huge potential for the CCS industry, which could bring investment and jobs across the whole energy sector.
The Energy Bill, announced last week by DECC, puts a focus on increasing the amount of low carbon energy produced from renewable and clean fossil fuel sources, with the aim of supporting a globally competitive low-carbon economy.
During his visit, Jonathan Holyoak commented, “Carbon Capture and Storage has huge potential to deliver cost competitive low carbon generation but the challenge is how we realise this potential quickly so we can meet our policy objectives in the 2020s. Facilities such as Cranfield’s Energy Technology Laboratory, which is part of the new UK CCS Research Centre, are important in ensuring we are able to achieve this and it is great to see things actually happening.”
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