Newcastle University

Sustainable Power

The Sustainable Power Research Group undertakes fundamental and applied research into various aspects of power generation and energy systems and has a strong publication track record in these areas.

Core research interests and areas of competence are in:

• alternative fuels, including hydrogen and biofuels;
• combined heat and power (CHP) systems;
• trigeneration and energy storage;
• emissions monitoring and reduction technology;
• unconventional engine configurations.

The group has strong links with a number of research centres and industrial partners, both locally and overseas, and leads and contributes to a number of publicly funded research projects.

Projects and research areas

Sustainable Energy through China-UK Research Engagement (SECURE) Project

Marine propulsion safety, environmental impact, efficiency and operation

• HISMAR: Hull Identification System for Marine Autonomous Robotics.
• Pose2idon: Power Optimised Ship for Environment with Electric Innovative Designs ON board.

Alternative fuels for thermal power plants

• Biofuel diesel engine operation.
• Hydrogen fuelled engines.
• Bio-oil and waste hydrogen dual fuel CHP system.

Combined heat and power systems, energy storage and trigeneration

• Domestic CHP with waste vegetable oils.
• Biofuel micro-trigeneration with cryogenic energy storage.
• Combined Heat and Power (CHP), Trigeneration and Energy Storage facility.

Unconventional engine configurations

• Miller cycle engine.
• Free-piston engines.
• Reciprocating Joule cycle engine.

Computational modelling and simulation

• Thermal systems.
• Dynamic systems and control.
• Life cycle analysis.

Thermal management and energy demand

• Thermal management in the process industries.
• PRO-TEM Network.
• Building management linking energy demand, distributed conversion and storage using dynamic modelling and a pervasive sensor infrastructure.

Consultancy

• Thermal overload and combustion analysis of large low speed marine diesel engines.
• Condition monitoring and fault diagnosis of thermal energy systems.
• Bio-fuel testing on small diesel marine craft.
• Combustion analysis on diesel main propulsion engines on oil tankers.

PhD Supervision

The Sustainable Power Group supervises PhD students in the research areas described above.  Many students work on collaborative projects with other schools in the University, other universities in both the UK and worldwide as well as industrial organisations.  We welcome interest from students, local and international and informal enquiries can be made to Dr Yaodong Wang.