GREEN-ICEs: Generation of REfrigerated ENergy Integrated with Cold Energy storage

制冷是现代社会的重要基础，支撑着现代生活的许多方面，消耗了英国14%的电力，也是英国温室气体排放量的10%左右，包括与电力消耗相关的二氧化碳和具有高全球变暖潜能值（GWP）的制冷剂泄漏。为了在2050年实现英国的净零排放目标，我们必须大幅减少制冷行业的碳排放。冷却段的脱碳需要解决两个关键挑战。首先，具有高GWP的传统制冷剂的泄漏是制冷行业温室气体排放的关键问题。因此，有必要用低GWP天然制冷剂如CO2替代它们。其次，如果消耗不可再生能源，制冷部门的高能耗也会导致温室气体排放。因此，需要部署具有成本效益的冷藏能力，以最大限度地利用间歇性可再生能源和廉价的非高峰电力。最近的研究得出结论，增加冷藏可以使高峰期的消费量减少43%。为了应对上述挑战，该项目旨在开发一种新型的冷能发电和储存集成系统，使用二氧化碳水合物作为制冷剂和储存材料，为英国乃至全球制冷行业的脱碳做出贡献。该多学科联盟由来自伯明翰大学，格拉斯哥大学和赫瑞瓦特大学的六位领先研究人员组成，处理广泛的平衡专业知识，包括化学工程，热力学，传热，CFD和经济学，以解决几个关键的科学和技术挑战，并得到几个领先的工业合作伙伴的进一步支持，以最大限度地提高知识交流和影响力。

The provision of cold is a vital foundation of modern society to underpins many aspects of modern life, consumes up to 14% of the UK's electricity, and is also responsible for around 10% of UK's greenhouse gas emissions, including both CO2 associated with their power consumption and leakage of refrigerants with high Global Warming Potential (GWP). In order to achieve net-zero emission target in 2050 in the UK, we must significantly decarbonise the cooling sector. The decarbonisation of the cooling section requires to tackle two key challenges. Firstly, the leakage of traditional, refrigerants with high GWP is a key issue of the greenhouse gas emission of the cooling sector. It is, therefore, necessary to substitute them with low GWP natural refrigerant such as CO2. Secondly, the high-power consumption of the cooling sector also results in greenhouse gas emission if non-renewable power is consumed. Hence, cost-effective cold storage capacity will need to be deployed to maximise the use of intermittent renewable energy and cheap off-peak electricity. The recent study concluded that the addition of cold storage can potentially provide a 43% decrease in peak period consumption. In response to the challenges identified above, this project aims to develop a novel integrated system for cold energy generation and storage using CO2 hydrate as both refrigerant and storage material, contributing to the decarbonisation of the cooling sector in the UK and more widely the global. The multidisciplinary consortium, consisting of six leading researchers from the Universities of Birmingham, Glasgow and Heriot-Watt, processes a wide range of well-balanced expertise including chemical engineering, thermodynamics, heat transfer, CFD, and economics to address several key scientific and technical challenges, and is further supported by several leading industrial partners to maximise knowledge exchange and impact delivery.