CarbonNeutral Culture

Newcastle City Council is working to make Newcastle the world's first carbon neutral city. Working in partnership with the Council through the Science City initiative, we aim to establish a robust, quantitative carbon footprint for the entire City, and placing these in the context of short- and longer–term climate change adaptation strategies, taking advantage of Newcastle University's role as a Core Partner of the Tyndall Centre for Climate change Research.

Carbon Footprint logoCarbon Routemap

A significant step forward has been made with the launch of the first phase of Carbon Routemap on the 1st September 2008. Initiated and led by Professor Thomas Wagner and Dr. Phil James from the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences and Dermot Roddy, Science City Professor of Energy and member of the Sir Joseph Swan Institute, Carbon Routemap aims to develop a routemap to a low-carbon economy for Newcastle (see http://www.ceg.ncl.ac.uk/research/geoscience/projects/carbonroutemap.htm for details and progress).

The project will establish and implement a long-term strategy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (measured as carbon) in Newcastle. It provides an interface between civic action and academia, coupling practical and pragmatic carbon reduction with technical insight and rigor. The project will deliver a comprehensive carbon footprint of the city. Integrated roadmap ‘plans’ will then be developed to reduce carbon emissions across all public, commercial, industrial, transport and domestic sectors. The project will strengthen and build upon existing partnerships, between the University, the Council, the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), CarbonNeutral Newcastle (CNN), and Newcastle Science City. This high standard of city-wide carbon management will become a beacon to other cities.

The primary objective is to develop and deliver a scientifically-sound, practical, basis for carbon reduction across Newcastle-upon-Tyne. With this ambitious goal the project forms one key contribution to Newcastle’s ‘Science City’ regeneration initiative under the “Energy and Environment” theme. The project output will be used as a tool by Civic leaders and key partners engaged through the LSP to guide future policy, development plans and practical carbon reduction programmes. The project will essentially contribute in delivering the city’s climate change strategy by providing a baseline position for carbon production against which progress can be measured and a forward plan with scenarios and mitigation activities can be achieved. This project will be one of the first key work programmes of the restructured LSP in Newcastle with a Climate Change Partnership reporting to the Delivery Board.

The project’s three main phases are:

  • Phase 1 (currently funded, acronym: Carbon Footprint)) : Footprint: a City-wide evaluation of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG)
  • Phase 2: developing routemaps and scenarios towards a low-carbon economy for the City
  • Phase 3: communication and initiation of implementation of the low-carbon programme

It is expected that Carbon Routemap will lay the foundation for a wide, cost effective, practical, approach to carbon management across the city. Some of the potential technology-based solutions offer significant new business opportunities for those who exploit first-mover advantage.  Carbon Routemap will therefore work with the Regional Development Agency to promote job creation in carbon reduction sectors. Therefore, implementation of a transparent structure on future GHG emission goals within the city limit of Newcastle will deliver a robust and on-the-ground basis to boost green technologies/economies and new “green careers” in the region.

Carbon Footprint

  • Developing a robust, verifiable method of quantifying a city's carbon footprint.
  • Mapping out scenarios for carbon footprint reduction relative to the baseline.
  • Sectoral breakdown of CO2 and CH4 emissions (electricity, heat, transport, waste, business, domestic, old and new housing), split by geographical area.
  • Accounting for transport-related emissions in major cities (accurate data gathering; impact of driver behaviour and congestion; impact of household and business behaviour).
  • Transport research, including IT for road charging and public transport optimisation.
  • An instrumented Science City with respect to transport emissions.
  • Engineering sustainable cities of the future.

Micro-renewables

  • Micro-hydro in a rural environment.
  • Renewable energy solutions for schools.
  • Integrating renewable energy solutions into a rural environment.
  • Equipment: access to fabrication facilities.
  • Equipment: small-scale facilities at Nafferton Farm.

Grid Connection

  • Power electronics;
    • Converting Photovoltaic (PV) electricity to AC; power control systems.
  • High voltage direct current transmission. Large-scale AC to DC conversion technology.
  • Grid-connected inverters for high power storage using Redox batteries and large capacitor banks.
  • Grid stability; control of grid-connected systems.
  • Control of wind turbines.
  • Response to national grid faults – fault ride-through; fault-tolerant machines; rapid fault detection.
  • Sensors and drive controllers for safety-critical applications.
  • Equipment: Virtual Power System for development work.

End-use Efficiency

  • Variable Speed Drives for bigger (to 600 kW), faster applications (to 120,000 rpm).
  • Collaboration with big energy users in the food industry.
  • Links with Tesco and their ambitions for carbon footprint reduction.
  • Equipment: Power Electronics, Drives and Machines Lab; Centre for Advanced Electrical Drives.
  • Compact power electronics for domestic appliances, including energy-efficient VSDs; high-speed, compact motors.
  • Rapid prototyping facility.

Other

  • Developing large machines for use on trains or in wind turbines.
  • Novel permanent magnet machines.
  • Social science research capability.