Analysis engineers at Heriot-Watt College in Dubai are launching a photo voltaic vitality testing facility to assist firms within the UK and different international locations to develop and take a look at new photo voltaic applied sciences.
The rooftop Photo voltaic Power Take a look at Web site 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 Expertise (DSIT) has funded the mission, with help from the British Embassy within the UAE.
Professor Tadhg O’Donovan, an Irish photo voltaic skilled at Heriot-Watt’s College 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 manner that isn’t potential within the UK and is restricted in Europe.
A Scottish firm referred to as Soltropy has already signed up to make use of the testing facility. Based mostly in Glasgow, Soltropy has developed an inexpensive system for houses 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 website 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: “We now have massive ambitions to proceed creating our know-how, so it’s invaluable for us to have entry to a website like this, the place we’ve close to supreme 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 Expertise, we have been delighted to help Heriot-Watt College in delivering this thrilling mission. In doing so, this offers 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 Power Take a look at Web site will can accommodate between 24 and 32 photo voltaic panels and a climate station that gives a reside second-by-second feed of information such because the ambient temperature, depth of the solar, humidity, wind pace and course.
The take a look at website can be linked to a knowledge centre on the highest ground of the College’s campus, which is able to analyse reside 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 embrace 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 numerous these applied sciences.
Professor O’Donovan stated: “Our analysis group assessments 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 changing into an increasing number of necessary due to the intermittency of provide.
“We additionally take a look at utilizing photo voltaic for cooling purposes or for water desalination, that are each actually necessary right here within the Center East.”
Professor O’Donovan stated photo voltaic vitality was a major a part of the Center East’s decarbonisation agenda. By 2050, beneath its Power Technique 2050, the UAE goals to extend clear vitality to 50% of its complete vitality combine, and cut back the carbon footprint of energy era by 70%.
In keeping with the United Nations, temperatures throughout the Arab states are rising sooner than the worldwide common. COP 28 – the 2023 United Nations Local weather Change Convention – can 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 12 months.
Within the UK, the federal government desires to see a fivefold improve in photo voltaic vitality by 2035, sufficient to energy round 20 million houses. 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 Power Safety Day bulletins final month, the UK authorities additionally pledged to set up a brand new taskforce to develop photo voltaic vitality deployment.
Heriot-Watt’s Photo voltaic Power Take a look at Web site in Dubai is an extension of a parallel facility arrange by Professor O’Donovan in Edinburgh, the place firms are in a position to take a look at their applied sciences in typical UK climate circumstances.
Mohamed Al-Musleh, an Assistant Professor at Heriot-Watt’s College of Engineering and Bodily Sciences in Dubai, is Co-Investigator with Professor O’Donovan on the Photo voltaic Power Take a look at Web site mission.
