Seed Funded Projects
Discover innovative, sustainable solutions from our seed-funded projects, advancing cooling technologies and decarbonization across industries and cities.
01- Waste Heat Assessment and Resource Mapping (WHARM)
The integration of cooling with waste heat recovery in several industrial and commercial applications represents a great opportunity for increasing the energy efficiency of our cities and industries. The advent of the 4th and 5th generations of district heating and cooling (DHC) have unlocked the potential for heat recovery from several sources with different temperature levels, paving the way for the large-scale decarbonisation of urban areas. Although some case studies have been implemented to date, heat recovery projects often face unique challenges to their implementation, with their realisation typically resulting from specific circumstances/incentives (e.g. grant funding, subsidies) rather than propitious market conditions. Some of these challenges include:
- High electricity costs, leading to long payback periods
- High costs of recovery and lack of standardised commercial arrangements
- Uncertainty over longevity and stability of the waste heat sources
- Spatio-temporal mismatch between heat production and demand
- Access to data on existing heat sources, their location, and potentials
Therefore, this project aims to develop a heat source map, including information on typical profiles and costs, as well as to review and test, via source-specific sensitivity analyses, what business models and commercial arrangements are needed to support the development of future low-carbon DHC systems.
This project is led by Henrique Lagoeiro, London South Bank University
02- Digital Twin Development for Solar-Powered Refrigeration Systems Integrated with EVs for Cooling Transportation in Clean Air Zones
The UK faces a lack of innovative solutions for electric vehicles (EV) capable of meeting the growing cooling transportation demands in food supply chain and healthcare sectors (e.g., vaccine and organ transport). With the enforcement of clean air zones in major city centres like London, Birmingham, and Manchester, there is a pressing need for sustainable, zero-emission cooling transportation systems. Current solutions, including Eja-Ice’s solar-powered refrigeration, require adaptation to meet UK-specific challenges, particularly the integration with efficient onboard EV systems and operation in clean air zones.
The This project aims to develop a digital twin for Eja-Ice’s solar-powered refrigeration system adapted for EV trucks. It will focus on identifying suitable PV panels, hybridising green cooling with thermal energy storage (PCM materials), and optimizing refrigeration system operations independent of the engine. In addition, the project will explore business models and policy frameworks to support market uptake of these systems in the UK, which the first of kind in the market.
The refrigeration system will be enhanced by integrating with EV platforms, suitable PV panels for UK conditions, and cooling storage using phase change materials (PCM). A digital twin will simulate system performance, optimizing the integration of solar energy and thermal energy storage to operate refrigeration independently of the truck engine. Road traffic and real-time environmental data will be incorporated to model performance.
The project will also develop business models and propose regulatory frameworks to support deployment in clean air zones.
This project will create a scalable solution for clean, EV-enabled cooling transportation, addressing the cooling demands in sectors like food and healthcare logistics. It will provide a sustainable alternative to engine-powered refrigeration systems, reducing emissions and ensuring compliance with UK clean air zone regulations. The project will also serve as a foundation for further research in areas such as PV and PCM materials, and VtG (vehicle to grid) integration.
This project aligns with Reef-UKC’s objectives by advancing renewable-powered cooling technology, particularly in the critical sectors of food and healthcare logistics. It supports the decarbonization of cooling systems in line with UK regulations, contributing to sustainable business models and policy development.
This project is led by Ehsan Baniasadi, Aston University
03- Exploring the social acceptability of diverse cooling technologies
In the United Kingdom, demand for cooling solutions is likely to increase significantly over the coming decades. Whilst AC units are familiar to most citizens, many other technological cooling solutions remain relatively unknown beyond niche circles. There is therefore a risk that the roll-out of future cooling solutions could be opposed by certain publics, either in their totality or in specific places where they are deemed inappropriate. In light of this, there is clearly value in better understanding the extent to which certain cooling solutions may be perceived (by publics and end-users) as more acceptable than others. To explore this question, we propose to leverage a mixed-methods approach consisting of surveys and focus groups. Surveys will be designed to understand what target participants already know about cooling technologies (solutions; rationale for use). Meanwhile, focus groups will be leveraged to draw-out greater nuance and meaning as to why they might think and feel as they do. Taken together, the mixed-methods approach outlined above will help us to better understand the social acceptability of diverse cooling technologies, helping to inform policy-makers, regulators and other actors tasked with anticipating and responding to increased demand for cooling.
This project is led by Dan van der Horst and Connor Smith, The University of Edinburgh
04- Optimising Energy Pile Systems for Efficient Cooling: A Digital Twin Approach
The global demand for cooling technologies alongside the urgent need for sustainable energy solutions, present a critical challenge for modern infrastructure and society. Energy pile systems, which utilise geothermal energy, have potential for cooling applications, but their efficiency is limited due to an incomplete understanding of the thermo-hydro-mechanical interactions between concrete piles, working fluids, and surrounding ground. These interactions, particularly heat transfer and fluid dynamics, are not optimised for cooling, leading to suboptimal performance. This research aims to address this limitation by developing a digital twin system to accurately model and predict the behaviour of energy piles in cooling applications. The project will explore strategies to improve cooling efficiency and system resilience, positioning energy piles as a more effective clean cooling solution. The methodology involves integrating small-scale physical experiments with computational modelling to simulate the heat transfer, fluid flow, and soil-pile interactions. Real-time data from these experiments will be used to inform and refine the digital twin, allowing for precise optimisation of cooling performance. The expected outcome is a significant improvement in the cooling efficiency of energy pile systems, contributing to reduced carbon emissions and meeting growing cooling needs, while advancing the use of geothermal energy in sustainable infrastructure.
This project is led by Moura Mehravar, University of Birmingham
05- Investigating mixed-circuit injection-extraction strategies between borehole heat exchangers in a cooling dominated system
Underground thermal energy storage (UTES) represents a promising but underutilised solution for balancing supply and demand in heating and cooling applications, especially as part of the UK’s decarbonisation strategy. Several applications, such as data centres, have large cooling demands and waste heat generation, yet, cooling is provided from grid electricity and heat is ejected. This project aims to investigate novel mixed-circuit arrays of borehole heat exchangers (BHEs), aiming to supply large cooling loads, whilst storing heat for later use. Mixed-circuit arrays of BHEs will be studied at the UK Geoenergy Observatories for a short-duration with heat and coolth simultaneously injected and extracted in a shared array. This data will subsequently be analysed and used for validation of numerical models, which can help to investigate the potential for large-scale mixed-circuit BHE arrays to be used for UTES. This will help improve the understanding of optimising novel mixed-circuit arrays to support energy security, decarbonisation of the heating/cooling sector, and understanding of UTES systems. It directly aligns to the Reef-UKC goals by field-testing i) new technologies for meeting cooling demands, whilst minimising energy consumption, ii) an environmentally friendly solution for meeting cooling demand, and iii) new technology to be incorporated with cooling/heating networks.
This project is led by Christopher Simon Brown, British Geological Survey
Seed Funded Projects - Round 1
- Waste Heat Assessment and Resource Mapping (WHARM)
- Digital Twin Development for Solar-Powered Refrigeration Systems Integrated with EVs for Cooling Transportation in Clean Air Zones
- Exploring the social acceptability of diverse cooling technologies
- Optimising Energy Pile Systems for Efficient Cooling: A Digital Twin Approach
- Investigating mixed-circuit injection-extraction strategies between borehole heat exchangers in a cooling dominated system