Analysis engineers at Heriot-Watt College in Dubai are launching a photo voltaic power testing facility to assist firms within the UK and different international locations to develop and check new photo voltaic applied sciences.
The rooftop Photo voltaic Vitality Check Website will profit from Dubai’s excessive ranges of sunshine and is being put in on the South-West wing of the College’s campus in Dubai within the United Arab Emirates.
The UK authorities’s Division for Science, Innovation, and Know-how (DSIT) has funded the mission, with assist from the British Embassy within the UAE.
Professor Tadhg O’Donovan, an Irish photo voltaic professional at Heriot-Watt’s Faculty of Engineering and Bodily Sciences in Dubai, is main the mission. He defined: “The provision of solar right here, with little or no cloud cowl, means we’re in a position to get very clear, repeatable testing circumstances for photo voltaic panels in a approach that isn’t doable within the UK and is proscribed in Europe.
A Scottish firm known as Soltropy has already signed up to make use of the testing facility. Primarily based in Glasgow, Soltropy has developed an reasonably priced system for properties and companies to warmth water. It has acquired funding from the Scottish Meals and Drink Web Zero Problem Fund to instal its know-how on Heriot-Watt’s testing web site for analysis and improvement functions. The Fund has been set as much as assist food and drinks firms work with universities and different analysis our bodies to assist them handle sustainability challenges.
Soltropy managing director Stuart Speake stated: “Now we have huge ambitions to proceed creating our know-how, so it’s invaluable for us to have entry to a web site like this, the place we now have close to very best climate circumstances and might measure efficiency with real-time climate and environmental knowledge.”
Nick Boucher, Head of the UK Science and Innovation Community for the Gulf Area stated: “As a part of the UK Division for Science, Innovation, and Know-how, we had been delighted to assist Heriot-Watt College in delivering this thrilling mission. In doing so, this supplies a novel alternative for the British trade to check and showcase their applied sciences, and to discover potential new markets within the Center East and past.”
The Photo voltaic Vitality Check Website will can accommodate between 24 and 32 photo voltaic panels and a climate station that gives a stay second-by-second feed of information such because the ambient temperature, depth of the solar, humidity, wind pace and path.
The check web site might be linked to an information centre on the highest flooring of the College’s campus, which is able to analyse stay knowledge from the power in opposition to theoretical fashions, to assist engineers predict and enhance the efficiency of their applied sciences.
Applied sciences that may be examined on the location embody photo voltaic thermal panels, which usually warmth water; photo voltaic photovoltaic applied sciences, which generate electrical energy; storage and battery gadgets, or programs that mix a variety of these applied sciences.
Professor O’Donovan stated: “Our analysis group exams how photo voltaic photovoltaic generates electrical energy after which how we retailer it in a battery to be used once we want it, which is turning into increasingly essential due to the intermittency of provide.
“We additionally have a look at utilizing photo voltaic for cooling functions or for water desalination, that are each actually essential right here within the Center East.”
Professor O’Donovan stated photo voltaic power was a major a part of the Center East’s decarbonisation agenda. By 2050, underneath its Vitality Technique 2050, the UAE goals to extend clear power to 50% of its whole power combine, and cut back the carbon footprint of energy era by 70%.
In line with the United Nations, temperatures throughout the Arab states are rising quicker than the worldwide common. COP 28 – the 2023 United Nations Local weather Change Convention – might be hosted in Dubai this November and December. Local weather knowledge suggests Dubai averages virtually 128 hours of sunshine a month and greater than 3,800 hours a yr.
Within the UK, the federal government desires to see a fivefold enhance in photo voltaic power by 2035, sufficient to energy round 20 million properties. Its Powering Up Britain report in March 2023 requires the deployment of each floor and rooftop photo voltaic to be maximised to assist obtain this.
In its Vitality Safety Day bulletins final month, the UK authorities additionally pledged to set up a brand new taskforce to develop photo voltaic power deployment.
Heriot-Watt’s Photo voltaic Vitality Check Website in Dubai is an extension of a parallel facility arrange by Professor O’Donovan in Edinburgh, the place firms are in a position to check their applied sciences in typical UK climate circumstances.
Mohamed Al-Musleh, an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt’s Faculty of Engineering and Bodily Sciences in Dubai, is Co-Investigator with Professor O’Donovan on the Photo voltaic Vitality Check Website mission.
