Nottingham Trent University and Ecolibrium partner to decarbonise district heat networks
Ecolibrium is entering into a partnership with Nottingham Trent University to support the next phase of REMOURBAN, a pan-European project that focuses on building smart energy communities through retrofitting and district heating.
The project is being led by Dr Anton Ianakiev, a professor in Sustainable Energy Systems at the School of Architecture, Design and Built Environment at the University.
The REMOURBAN project is piloting a sustainable urban regeneration model in three lighthouse cities – Nottingham (UK), Valladolid (Spain) and Eskisehir (Turkey) – drawing on innovative technologies to improve energy efficiency, sustainability of urban transport and reduce gas emissions in urban areas.
In this next phase, the partners will explore ways to optimise Nottingham’s localised district heating networks which are being tested by the REMOURDAN project using SmartSense, Ecolibrium’s cloud-based decarbonisation platform.
The district heating network in Nottingham is the largest in the UK and has been providing heat and hot water for five decades.
SmartSense, a machine learning led decarbonisation platform, collects real-time information on energy consuming assets, operational data and critical metrics using IoT. This intelligence is then channelled through proprietary machine learning algorithms to visualise and provide actionable insights, helping users make transformative changes to their sustainability goals.
The partnership will go on to develop further AI based solutions to optimise district heating networks which can be replicated in other geographies to drive sustainability benefits, as well as reduce operating costs. Other benefits include faster response times and better comfort levels for citizens due to more even temperature distribution.
The project will see the partners fund a PhD student to spearhead the initiative, under Dr Ianakiev’s direction.
Chintan Soni, chief executive of Ecolibrium, said:
“Mixed-use urban environments are major contributors to the UK’s energy consumption and carbon footprint. We are excited to see SmartSense applied in this environment and help develop a way to optimise local district heating networks, which are set to play an important part of the UK’s decarbonisation drive, as well as reduce operational expenditure. Dr Ianakiev and his team have already achieved some excellent results in the REMOURDAN project, as part of Nottingham Trent University’s world-leading research functionality and we are honoured to play a role in the next phase to help nurture the next generation of sustainability talent.”
Professor Ianakiev from Nottingham Trent University said:
“Nottingham Trent University was a leading partner in the REMOURBAN Future Cities demonstrator project, funded through the EU H2020 Lighthouse project scheme. In 2050 Homes one of the number retrofitting programmes developed within the REMOURBAN project, we researched the opportunity to move away from fossil fuel sources and achieve high energy efficiency at reasonable cost by offsetting the energy consumption with local energy microgeneration. With the present PhD collaboration with Ecolibrium we are aiming to optimise further the energy performance of the 2050 Homes energy system and achieve optimal utilisation of the energy generated”.
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