Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transi
Hydorgen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transition (HI-ACT) Hub - Our website has moved!
The HI-ACT Hub has been successfully funded by UKRI and EPSRC. The Hub will run for 5 years, starting from June 2023, and has £10m direct investment from EPSRC.
All the information below was established during our consultancy phase which ran from April 2022 - May 2023.
For the latest information please visit our new website at www.hi-act.ac.uk or get in touch with HI-ACT using the details below:
Email: HIACT@newcastle.ac.uk
Twitter: @HIACT_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hiact/
Join our mailing list: https://forms.office.com/r/MB9e6yynxE
About us
The UK Government has set out high expectations for the role of hydrogen in its future energy plans. It wants hydrogen to fulfil between 20%-35% of the UK's total energy demand. The UK currently produces around 27 TWh hydrogen each year. This would need to expand to 250 TWh by 2050 to meet even the minimum forecast expectations.
Our project aims to better understand the requirements of all the stakeholders who can help accelerate this transition. Through our research, we want to develop a better understanding of the potential pathways for integrating hydrogen into future energy use.
Professor Sara Walker from Newcastle University, Professor David Flynn from the University of Glasgow, and Professor Jianzhong Wu from Cardiff University were successful in their bid to UKRI to become a UK coordinator of the Hydrogen Integration for Accelerated Energy Transitions (HI-ACT) Centre. The Centre will work to deliver a fundamental shift in critical lifecycle analysis for optimisation of operational and planning decision support for the integration of hydrogen and alternative fuels into the UK energy landscape.
HI-ACT consortium will analyse the role of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuiels in the context of the overall energy landscape, through the creation of robust tools which are investment-oriented in their analysis. A whole systems and systems integration approach is needed in order to better understand the interconnected and interdependent nature of complex energy systems, including hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels, from a technical, social, environmental and economic perspective.
Consortia Building
For the first six months starting from April 2022, the Centre will use this time to build high-impact, multi-disciplinary, multi-site teams, with the aim of building longer-term research alliances. The consortia will be a vibrant, diverse, and open community, and aspires to provide an unparalleled environment, respecting equality diversity and inclusion, to mentor and develop the next generation of research leaders.
With the full spectrum of hydrogen, technologies and use cases, open to stakeholder feedback and evaluation, we want to co-create with stakeholders a national strategy that maximises the impact of hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels for UK priorities with respect to both national and international markets. This will involve identification of high priority investments, refining the evaluation criteria of an inclusive hydrogen and alternative liquid fuels energy transition, and prioritisation of a research strategy for maximum impact into addressing the barriers to a scalable economy.
The diversity of people we want to engage with to create a strategic and inclusive include, but aren’t limited to:
- end users (adopters)
- service companies
- operators/generators
- investors
- network operators
- regulators
- energy charities
- government policy makers
We will aim to bring all stakeholders together through a series of focus groups to help identify the role of hydrogen and how the Centre can align its research to the current and future needs of hydrogen integration.
To register your interest and to sign up to the Centre’s mailing list by completing the Registration Form.
Surveys
We are collecting your views.
HI-ACT has created these questionnaires for stakeholders with intrests and expertise in the field of hydorgen and energy systems integration. We want to understand the key research areas and priorities from all perspectives.
Workshops
We ran two in-person workshops in July. Sponsored by EPSRC, we had over 60 industry and academic partners discuss the priorities, challenges and opportunities for the UK hydrogen economy. The findings from both of these workshops will be made available.
You can listen to our podcast to find out more about the workshops.
Expertise Map
Part of our 'Identification' stage, we have created an interactive map of major hydrogen projects. We will continute to add and develop this map as the project grows and develops.
View it here!
Events
We have had represntation at several events so far:
- IDRIC Industrial Decarbonisation Showcase on 6th - 7th June in Edinburgh
- H2FC conference in St Andrews on 8th - 9th June in St Andrews
- Supergen Bioenergy Hub workshop on hydrogen from biomass
- A round table in Berlin hosted by the UK ambassador to Germany on green hydrogen collaboration opportunities
- UKERC Annual Conference June held in Manchester
- EPSRC Engineering Net Zero Showcase
- 3rd International Conference on Energy and AI in July, Belfort (France).
-
NCOSE Presentation Birmingham 13th July
News and Events
- In June and July we will continue the industry engagement, and will also begin to increase our engagement with the academic community.
- Keep an eye out for our monthly newsletters to keep up-tod-date with our activities - sign up to recieve them here
- Safe the date: Tuesday 13th September UKRI and EPSRC Hydrogen Industry Event in collaboration with UK-HyRES
- We will also shortly be launching a call for expressions of interest for academic co-investigators for the Centre.
Contact Us
You can contact us through email: HIACT@newcastle.ac.uk
You can join our mailing list through the sign-up link
Follow us on twitter: @HIACT_
Our Team
We are delighted to introduce you to the team behind HI-ACT.
Professor Sara Walker
Professor Sara Walker, Newcastle University. Professor Walker is the lead for HI-ACT. She is also the Work Package lead for consortium building. She is Director for the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration, Deputy Director of the Supergen Energy Networks Hub and Deputy Director of the Active Building Centre. Her work is on systems integration, and the role of built environment in particular.
Professor Jianzhong Wu
Professor Jianzhong Wu, Cardiff University. Professor Wu is a Co-Investigator for HI-ACT. Professor Wu is leading the Work Package on expertise mapping. He is also a theme lead for the UK Energy Research Centre, and Work Package lead for the Supergen Energy Networks Hub. His work is around network integration modelling and optimisation.
Professor David Flynn
Professor David Flynn, Glasgow University. Professor Flynn is also a Co-Investigator for HI-ACT, and he leads the Work Package on engagement. Professor Flynn is a Work Package leader for the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration, and the academic lead for ReFLEX, which is the Orkney future energy systems demonstrator. His work is around digitalisation of energy systems.
Dr Jamie Blanche
Dr Jamie Blanche, Glasgow University. Dr Blanche is a research associate for HI-ACT working on stakeholder engagement. Recently working with the Offshore Robotics for Certification of Assets (ORCA) Hub, Dr. Blanche specialises in non-destructive sensor integration for the offshore energy sector and energy systems analysis.
Dr Meysam Qadrdan
Dr Meysam Qadrdan, Cardiff University. Dr Meysam Qadrdan is an EPSRC-UKRI Innovation Fellow and a Reader in Energy Networks and Systems at Cardiff University. His research area covers expansion and operational planning of interdependent energy networks at different scales from community to national level.
Dr Nabila Rufa’I
Dr Nabila Rufa’I, Newcastle University. Dr Rufa’I is a Research Associate for HI-ACT. Her research is around exploring decarbonisation pathways to achieve UK net zero target by 2050. Her most recent work involves techno-economic analysis of integrated biomass gasification technologies for hydrogen production.
Dr Adib Allahham
Dr Adib Allahham, Newcastle University. Dr Allahham is a Senior Research Associate at the School of Engineering. His research activities are addressing the need to cost-effectively decarbonise the energy sector over the next thirty years by facilitating innovative network integration of new generation, and the integration of different energy vectors including the Hydrogen.
Rhiannon Lamb
Rhiannon Lamb, Newcastle University. Rhiannon is a Project Administrator supporting the EPSRC National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI), Clean Tyne Project and the Centre for Energy at Newcastle University. Her role in HI-ACT will encompass dissemination, communication, and event planning. Rhiannon is currently completing her master's in marine biology and has a strong interest in maritime energy production.
Kate Kelly
Kate Kelly, Newcastle University, Kate is a Research Coordinator and Project Manager supporting the EPSRC Active Building Centre and the Centre for Energy at Newcastle University. Her role in HI-ACT will include supporting engagement with stakeholders and proposal development.
Justina Heslop
Justina Heslop, Newcastle University. Justina is a Research Project Manager. She supports several research groups and projects across Chemistry and Engineering most notable the North East Centre for Energy Materials. Her role in HI-ACT will include stakeholder management and coordinating events and activities for the Centre.