A publication created with Pan European Networks to promote the work of the Birmingham Energy Institute.

1. Birmingham
Energy
Institute

2. Birmingham Energy Institute a
Birmingham Energy Institute b
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/ENERGY
Birmingham Energy Institute a
Birmingham Energy Institute b
BIRMINGHAM
ENERGY
INSTITUTE
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/ENERGY
BIRMINGHAM CENTRE
FOR ENERGY
STORAGE
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/BCES
Birmingham Centre for Nuclear Education a
BIRMINGHAM CENTRE
FOR NUCLEAR EDUCATION
AND RESEARCH
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/ENERGY
Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements and Critical Materials a
BIRMINGHAM CENTRE
FOR STRATEGIC ELEMENTS
AND CRITICAL MATERIALS
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/BCSECM
Birmingham Energy Institute a
BIRMINGHAM CENTRE
FOR FUEL CELL
AND HYDROGEN RESEARCH
BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/ENERGY
think Business with Birmingham 1
Business with Birmingham
Energy special edition
Tracking energy consumption p3
Fuel cell technology in full flight p4
inside Liquid asset p6
A room with a view p7
Government has committed
£60 million in a new energy
research project.
See page 2
We are
bursting
with
energy
BIRMINGHAM CENTRE
FOR ENVIRONMENTAL
AND ENERGY ECONOMICS
AND MANAGEMENT
@BHAMENERGY
WWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC.UK/BCEEEM
2 www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy
FIND ALL OF
OUR LATEST
LITERATURE AND
BROCHURES AT:
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energy-brochures

3. The University of Birmingham and
the Birmingham Energy Institute
T
he University of Birmingham has been challenging and
developing great minds for more than a century.
Characterised by a tradition of innovation, research at
the university has broken new ground, pushed forward the
boundaries of knowledge and made an impact on people’s lives.
The university continues this tradition today,and has ambitions
for a future that will embed the work and recognition of the
Birmingham name on the international stage.
The Birmingham Energy Institute is the focal point for the
university and its national partners,to create change in the way
we deliver, consume and think about energy. The institute
harnesses expertise from the fundamental sciences and
engineering, through to business and economics, in order to
deliver co-ordinated research,education and the development
of global partnerships.By creating technology and guiding policy
today, we aim to help shape energy solutions tomorrow.
The institute is driving technology innovation and developing
the thinking required to solve the challenges facing the UK, as
it seeks to develop sustainable energy solutions in transport,
electricity and heat supply. Co-ordinated research, education
and global partnerships are at the heart of our vision.
The Birmingham Energy Institute has a number of research centres
which focus on specific dimensions of the energy challenge:
n Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage;
n Birmingham Centre for Hydrogen & Fuel Cells;
n Birmingham Centre for Nuclear Education & Research;
n Birmingham Centre for Environmental and Energy
Economics and Management; and
n Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements & Critical Materials.
The Birmingham Energy Institute is also a partner in the Energy
ResearchAccelerator initiative [www.era.ac.uk],leading on the
Thermal Energy Research Accelerator theme.
Find out more about the Birmingham Energy Institute at:
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy and follow the latest updates
onTwitter @bhamenergy.
Birmingham Fuels the Future with Hydrogen
and Fuel Cells
The University of Birmingham was the first UK University to
have a hydrogen refuelling station on campus.It is home to the
Birmingham Centre for Fuel Cell & Hydrogen research.The
campus is a living laboratory for hydrogen fuels,with a number
of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in operation on the campus. In
future, developments at the Tyseley Energy Park will expand
the footprint of hydrogen infrastructure in Birmingham,
providing a compelling city-scale sandbox for new thinking.
Birmingham Energy Institute academics currently lead on two
programmes, MMLCR and SCORED 2:0, which examine fuel
cell life extension. Two other significant programmes are
‘Heatstack’,a collaboration with industry that looks at bringing
fuel cell components closer to the marketplace, and the
“Balance” project,which looks at how fuel cells can deliver grid
services, including energy storage and grid stabilisation.
“The complexity of the energy challenge requires systems level
thinking,drawing on the breadth of our capabilities from policy
and economics to new technologies.With our national and
international collaborators,from both academia and industry,
we are helping to define the landscape for the future.The
Birmingham Energy Institute brings together people and ideas,
it enables funding and training and delivers creative solutions
and human talent.”
Professor Martin Freer,director of the Birmingham
Energy Institute
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy 3

4. Birmingham –
Energy Capital
W
ith a strong tradition of entrepreneurship,
invention and civic pride, the UK’s West
Midlands has historically been a crucible of
industrial innovation. More contemporary developments
have created a constellation of opportunity in the heart of
the UK, creating a fertile environment for energy
innovation and a magnet for inward investment.
Energy Capital builds on significant investments by UK central
government, which has created a thriving energy innovation
ecosystem in the West Midlands. The Birmingham Energy
Institute is deeply embedded within these initiatives.
n The University of Birmingham is a partner in the Energy
Research Accelerator, a £180m (~€203m) initiative which
brings together six leading research-intensive Midlands
universities with the British Geological Survey to advance
key energy innovations.
n The Birmingham Energy Institute works closely with the
Energy Systems Catapult, a leading technology and
innovation centre set up to help the UK navigate the
transformation of our whole energy system.
By responding to the needs of our vibrant manufacturing
economy and diverse local markets,Energy Capital aims to make
theWest Midlands one of the most attractive locations to build
innovative clean energy technology companies in the world.
The Energy Capital partnership combines world-leading
academic expertise with ambitious local authorities, diverse
businesses, innovators and entrepreneurs.
The Birmingham Energy Institute has been a key partner in the
development of Energy Capital,which was launched in February
2017 at the University of Birmingham.
Energy Capital provides a single point of contact for
investors,project funders and potential partners across the
West Midlands.The initiative facilitates and co-ordinates
collaborative public-private investment projects across the
region,and works with the local communities,public bodies
and national government to create an attractive and
creative environment for companies that want to become
part of the global low-carbon and smart energy transition.
http://www.energycapital.org.uk/
For more information on the Birmingham Energy
Institute’s bold plans as part of Energy Capital, see:
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energycapital
Birmingham Is BuzzingWith Energy
Professor Sir David King – Speaking on Opportunities for Energy
Capital in Mission Innovation
A packed house assembles for the launch of Energy Capital
4 www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy

5. T
he Tyseley Energy Park will be a clean technology hub
for the City of Birmingham, showcasing and
demonstrating a range of next-generation energy
technologies at commercial scale.
Strategically located between the city centre and Birmingham
Airport,Tyseley will play a key role in the future architecture
of the region’s sustainable transport. Already, plans are well
advanced for an on-site hydrogen refuelling facility, which will
power a fleet of clean buses and mobilise the city’s residents
with zero emissions.
There is also a range of other technologies which will be
demonstrated on the site that have the potential to radically
improve the city’s carbon footprint. Fraunhofer has already
established the UK’s first thermo-catalytic reformer
demonstration plant at the site – which can turn organic wastes
into liquid fuels, hydrogen and syn-gas.
Another technology which has the potential to green the city is
‘liquid air’.The University of Birmingham already hosts the UK’s
first liquid air energy storage pilot plant,a novel innovation which
stores electricity in the form of cryogenic liquid nitrogen
produced from the air. Whilst this technology functions as a
standalone store of grid-electricity,it can also be envisioned within
a broader ‘cold economy’, where liquid air provides a unique
energy vector that is suited to the storage of‘cold and power’.
The Birmingham Energy Institute collaborates closely with
Dearman, a company that produces a reciprocating engine,
which potentially could replace ‘dirty diesel’ transport
refrigeration units (TRUs) around the world.The system could
reduce the sooty emissions from TRUs fitted to lorries and
vans that make deliveries in urban centres.
TheTyseley Energy Park has the potential to be a world-leading
demonstrator of waste processing technologies linked into a
low-carbon energy generation system, linked to a low-carbon
transport hub in one of the major UK cities.
View a more detailed version of our vision forTyseley Energy
Park at: http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/Documents/college-
eps/energy/tyseley-environmental-enterprise-district.pdf
For more information on the Birmingham Energy
Institute’s bold plans as part of Energy Capital, see:
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energycapital
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy 5
Birmingham’s Energy
Ambitions: Focus on Tyseley

6. Fraunhofer UMSICHT &
Birmingham Energy Institute
Partner on Joint Research Platform
W
ednesday 17 May 2017 marked the official launch
of a collaborative Joint Research Platform between
the Birmingham Energy Institute and Fraunhofer
UMSICHT at the University of Birmingham.
The Joint Research Platform will combine academic expertise
with industrial capability to deliver new approaches to energy
and waste management with the beneficiaries being cities and
communities. It will address the practical challenges that sit at
the heart of the energy waste nexus,applying academic insight
to accelerate innovation to the market place.
Over 100 UK and international leaders from industry and
academia attended the launch event to discuss a collective
ambition to drive innovation to make Birmingham the green
heart of Britain.
The collaboration will initially focus on the new thermo-catalytic
reforming (TCR®) technology,developed by ProfessorAndreas
Hornung, chair in bioenergy at the University of Birmingham,
and director of the institute branch, Sulzbach-Rosenberg,
Fraunhofer UMSICHT.The demonstrator for TCR is based at
Tyseley Energy Park.
In the future,the collaboration will look to progress a chain of
commercial-scale thermo-catalytic reforming plants around the
City of Birmingham.This concept has been called the ‘thermal
belt‘. If developed, the technology will have the potential to
transform the way we think about waste and energy, and start
providing a solution to the growing demand for clean energy
and fuels on a global scale.
ProfessorAndreas Hornung said:“The Joint Research Platform
is a major step forward into a new era of transferring
innovation into application.Guests from all over the world have
been in Birmingham, celebrating this opportunity, including
Fraunhofer UMSICHT,based in Sulzbach-Rosenberg
and Oberhausen,belongs to Germany's
Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft,Europe's largest organisation for
applied research with 69 institutes and a workforce of
25,000 employees in Germany.Fraunhofer UMSICHT's
research is focused on environmental technologies.It
develops concepts and processes for direct application.
Integrated process monitoring for efficient,sustainable
and economical solutions are central to Fraunhofer
UMSICHT’s work.
investors in technology from Brazil, Italy and Germany. We
delivered something new to the great research portfolio at the
University of Birmingham, and to the means of the city to get
solutions delivered for a green Birmingham.”
Professor Martin Freer, director of the Birmingham Energy
Institute, said: “The establishment of a joint University of
Birmingham-Fraunhofer UMSICHT research platform comes
at a great moment, when not only are there significant
opportunities for collaborative research,but the chance to set
the agenda for the City of Birmingham in its drive towards the
decarbonising of energy and transport,and better use of waste
for energy and fuels.This is a very exciting moment for the
Birmingham Energy Institute and I am sure will be looked back
on as formative in its aim to have substantive impact on the UK
energy transition.”
Signing of Joint Research Platform Agreement at the University of Birmingham
6 www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy

7. Doing Cold Smarter
T
hermal energy, both hot and cold, is one of the major
energy challenges.The provision of cold, or cooling, is
integral to modern society.Without it, the supply of
food, medicine and data would simply break down.Yet cooling
currently consumes large amounts of energy and causes a great
deal of pollution.
A growing urban population and new middle classes in countries
that are developing rapidly are creating escalating demand for
cooling.While current technologies may relieve pressure on the
supply chain,the environmental impact would be severe.
Doing Cold Smarter, a policy
commission from the Birmingham
Energy Institute,provides a roadmap
for the UK to navigate the
complexity of cold energy provision,
and provides direction for investment
in sustainable solutions.
To download a copy of the report
and find out more about the
Birmingham Energy Institute Policy
Commission see:
Birmingham Energy Institute Launches UK’s
First Strategic Elements and Critical Materials
Research Centre
The University of Birmingham has launched the UK’s first research
centre dedicated to exploring issues of materials criticality.The
launch brought together a couple of hundred people,from across
many disciplinary backgrounds,the policy arena and industry.
The centre launch enjoyed a broad base of industrial support,
with presentations delivered by Rolls Royce, Johnson Matthey
and Stena Technoworld AB. Our academics will explore how
we can mitigate against the risks inherent in using materials
that, whilst of high economic importance, are at risk of short
supply, whether through scarcity or geo-political factors.The
centre will explore approaches to a range of materials,including
Heavy and light rare earth elements, platinum group metals,
lithium, rhenium and others that are central to our future
energy systems and technologies.
More information on the Birmingham Centre for Strategic
Elements & Critical Materials can be found at
www.birmingham.ac.uk/BCSECM.
www.birmingham.ac.uk/doingcoldsmarter
Cold is a vital part of thermal energy policy for the future, but
despite that 14% (almost £5.2bn each year) of Britain’s
electricity goes to cooling, it has been little explored.
Since the launch of the policy commission, the Birmingham
Energy Institute has been developing a broad portfolio of
activity around cooling for the future. Engaging with
international partners, we have the technology and capability
to transform our cold energy system.
We are currently exploring how our technologies can be
deployed on the international stage, in pursuit of meeting the
needs of countries that are developing, whilst working to
progress towards the UN Global Goals.
JRC Collaboration focuses on skills for EU
nuclear industry
The decommissioning of nuclear facilities is growing worldwide,
creating job opportunities at all educational levels. It is
important to ensure that industry has the skills base needed
to accomplish this vital task.
Following a successful workshop at the University of
Birmingham drawing together a wide cross-section of industry
stakeholders, the Birmingham Energy Institute collaborated
with the EU Joint Research Centre to produce the report
“Education & Skills for Nuclear Decommissioning”.
This is available from:
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy-policy
Reinhard Bütikofer MEP giving a keynote speech at the launch of
the Birmingham Centre for Strategic Elements & Critical Materials
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy 7
Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage:
Hot Science for Cold Storage
The Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage has a broad range
of expertise in a number of key energy storage technologies.
In a future where distributed energy sources look to play an
increasingly important role in our energy systems, the ability
to store energy for later use becomes increasingly important.
One particular area of expertise within the centre is thermal
energy storage materials – for both ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ applications.
Our scientists are working on phase-change materials which will
aid in effective renewable energy utilisation by decoupling the
need to produce thermal energy at the same time it is being used.
We are developing novel concepts around the ‘cold economy’,
devising new technologies for generating,storing and transporting
‘cold’.To this end,we have expertise in cold storage materials and
devices.Our laboratories are well equipped for multi-scale analysis
for energy storage, and we have developed an understanding
of processes and materials across length scales in different
storage technologies.
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energystorage
RSMARTER
COLD
DOING
SMARTERR
.UK/ENEWWW.BIRMINGHAM.AC
Y@BHAMENERG
YRG
Shaping Energy Policy

8. Birmingham Energy Institute
University of Birmingham
www.birmingham.ac.uk/energy
@bhamenergy