NERC: Jennifer Watts: NE/S007504/1

The EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Renewable Energy Northeast Universities (ReNU) is driven by industry and market needs, which indicate unprecedented growth in renewable and distributed energy to 2050. This growth is underpinned by global demand for electricity which will outstrip growth in demand for other sources by more than two to one (The drivers of global energy demand growth to 2050, 2016, McKinsey). A significant part of this demand will arise from vast numbers of distributed, but interconnected devices (estimated to reach 40 billion by 2024) serving sectors such as healthcare (for ageing populations) and personal transport (for reduced carbon dioxide emission). The distinctive remit of ReNU therefore is to focus on materials innovations for small-to-medium scale energy conversion and storage technologies that are sustainable and highly scalable. ReNU will be delivered by Northumbria, Newcastle and Durham Universities, whose world-leading expertise and excellent links with industry in this area have been recognised by the recent award of the North East Centre for Energy Materials (NECEM, award number: EP/R021503/1). This research-focused programme will be highly complementary to ReNU which is a training-focused programme. A key strength of the ReNU consortium is the breadth of expertise across the energy sector, including: thin film and new materials; direct solar energy conversion; turbines for wind, wave and tidal energy; piezoelectric and thermoelectric devices; water splitting; CO2 valorisation; batteries and fuel cells. Working closely with a balanced portfolio of 36 partners that includes multinational companies, small and medium size enterprises and local Government organisations, the ReNU team has designed a compelling doctoral training programme which aims to engender entrepreneurial skills which will drive UK regional and national productivity in the area of Clean Growth, one of four Grand Challenges identified in the UK Government's recent Industrial Strategy. The same group of partners will also provide significant input to the ReNU in the form of industrial supervision, training for doctoral candidates and supervisors, and access to facilities and equipment. Success in renewable energy and sustainable distributed energy fundamentally requires a whole systems approach as well as understanding of political, social and technical contexts. ReNU's doctoral training is thus naturally suited to a cohort approach in which cross-fertilisation of knowledge and ideas is necessary and embedded. The training programme also aims to address broader challenges facing wider society including unconscious bias training and outreach to address diversity issues in science, technology, engineering and mathematics subjects and industries. Furthermore, external professional accreditation will be sought for ReNU from the Institute of Physics, Royal Society of Chemistry and Institute of Engineering Technology, thus providing a starting point from which doctoral graduates will work towards "Chartered" status. The combination of an industry-driven doctoral training programme to meet identifiable market needs, strong industrial commitment through the provision of training, facilities and supervision, an established platform of research excellence in energy materials between the institutions and unique training opportunities that include internationalisation and professional accreditation, creates a transformative programme to drive forward UK innovation in renewable and sustainable distributed energy.

SUPERSLUG will push the frontiers of scientific knowledge and technical innovation to reveal new fundamental insights into the legacies of catastrophic sediment-rich flows (SRF) in mountain landscapes, such as landslides, rock-ice avalanches and glacial lake outburst floods. Catastrophic SRFs are hypothesised to become more frequent this century due to climate warming, and often affect vulnerable communities and assets in least developed countries the most. SRFs can entrain, mobilise, and deposit vast quantities of sediment, which can blanket valley floors to depths of tens of metres. The subsequent re-working and transport of these sediments by rivers can generate large-scale and fast-moving 'superslugs', which is a so-called 'legacy' impact of an SRF. Such legacy impacts are poorly understood, mostly due to observational challenges which have persisted for over a hundred years. However, improving our understanding of these impacts is of vital importance: enhanced fluvial transport of sediment following an SRF can affect flood hazard (by altering river channel bed elevation), infrastructure (e.g. by scouring bridge footings and damaging hydropower turbines), and can disrupt water quality, reducing water and energy security in regions that experience increasingly unstable and hazardous hydrological regimes. With SUPERSLUG we seek to encourage a paradigm shift framed around our argument that the landscape legacies of catastrophic SRFs should be quantified in as much detail as an initial event. To do this we will springboard from recent UKRI-funded pilot work by our international team to develop and apply a new multi-method and widely applicable suite of tools for quantifying the geomorphological evolution of SRF-affected catchments over multi-decade timeframes that are relevant for decision makers, in turn generating new insights into the fundamental behaviour, and impacts, of sediment superslugs. We will focus on a ~150 km-long exemplar system in the Indian Himalaya that has recently experienced a catastrophic SRF; the so-called 'Chamoli disaster'. This catchment arguably represents the most data-rich landscape of its type globally and sits within an otherwise extremely data-poor region. To deconstruct the evolution and impacts of sediment superslugs we will implement five work packages which will: (WP1) benchmark the geomorphological and sedimentological evolution of an SRF-affected system in space and time by using drone-derived observations to upscale from local- to catchment-wide observations using satellite remote sensing; (WP2) directly measure bedload motion in SRF-affected river channels using innovative wireless 'smart' cobbles, complemented with passive seismics; (WP3) develop an open-source toolkit for detecting and tracking fine-grained superslugs by leveraging cloud-based (Google Earth Engine) processing of free satellite imagery; and (WP4) integrate our novel observations from WP1-3 to upscale a powerful numerical landscape evolution-hydrodynamic model to simulate superslug mobility and the wider geomorphological evolution of our exemplar catchment. Our calibrated model, which will be a form of 'digital twin', will represent the largest of its kind and we will use it to explore catchment management decisions (e.g. HEP flushing schedules) for mitigating the worst superslug impacts. Underpinning these four WPs is a fifth WP, wherein we will adopt a Theory of Change-based approach for engaging closely with beneficiaries of this new knowledge and associated tools to translate our findings into practical outcomes and impact, including governance and disaster management professionals, hydropower operators and the wider international academic community.

This research proposal aims to develop advanced power sources that can convert indoor light into electricity to operate electronic sensors for the internet of things (IoT) - an emerging trillion-dollar industry that impacts all human life. The proposed new technology is termed 'indoor photovoltaics'. The technology is based on current organic photovoltaics that can be made flexible, lightweight, rollable, semi-transparent and of different colours at an ultra-low dollar per-watt cost. Using new chemistry principles, photoactive materials design, device engineering, advanced printing and electrical connections, the project aims to deliver fully functional indoor power devices ready for market evaluation. The proposed concept is new and expected to have a broad impact on Canada's and the UK's energy, communication and manufacturing sectors. The proposed chemistries are unique and should lead to paradigm shifts in the view of molecular self-assembly of organic photoactive materials. The ability to fabricate fully printed devices and integrate them into circuits all at once is the key strength of this proposal and serves to immediately validate or invalidate specific materials and/or device designs to ensure objectives are met in a timely fashion. The development of prototypes at the University level enables faster innovations and will allow this technology to bridge the infamous "valley-of-death" laboratory to market transition. The iOPV technology embodies a new paradigm in photovoltaics fabrication using solution-processable materials that can be delivered under ambient conditions (much like ink printed on paper). The simple additive manufacturing process mitigates CO2 production by requiring significantly less energy than traditional lithography-based methods. In addition, the potential for large scale roll-to-roll processing requires only a small capital investment, allowing for localised manufacturing. Printing equipment can tremendously reduce human interaction and the labour required for mass production. Thus, this can promote cost-effective local manufacturing for electronic devices.

Mountain glaciers are melting at an increased rate due to climate change; this is leading to decreasing water resources for the surrounding communities, which is becoming of increasing importance in western Canada as glacier volume is expected to reduce by 70% by 2100. As a glacier melts, a lake can be formed in front of the glacier. This lake is formed due to a depression (herein called 'overdeepenings') in the landscape which has been scraped out by glacial erosion, this then fills with the generated melt water once the glacier retreats out of it and can then become dammed by deposited moraines. As these lakes continue to develop and grow, while the glacier continues to shrink, they have the potential to become hazardous, if a sudden release of water occurs, while they can become opportunities for economic benefits - such as hydroelectric dams and tourism - when the glacier disappears. Research on the formation and development of these glacial lakes has been discussed at length within the literature and is well understood. The vast majority of the research at present has focused on these glacial lakes as hazards, focusing on negative impacts such as; decreasing water resources, and the effects on downstream communities. A question which has received very little attention in the literature - and that shall be answered by this study - is that of where these glacial lakes will develop in the future as global warming causes glaciers to disappear and what these locations will look like as these, now relic, lakes dominate the environment? A limited number of studies have been trying to answer this question in to where these glacial lakes will be in the future, with a primary focus on locations of relatively important consequence, for example the Himalaya-Karakoram region. Another study, taking a more global perspective, looked into the possibility of these lakes for hydroelectric dams, which would be important contributions to national energy supplies in many countries. Both studies used estimated glacial ice thicknesses to predict where these overdeepenings have been located. Although these studies provide an understanding on the formation of future lakes, and how they will evolve, no study has tried to describe or understand what these locations will look like once these glaciers disappear and the lakes are all that remain. This study shall be working in British Columbia and Alberta in western Canada, where we shall predict where these glacial overdeepenings are under the present-day glacial ice. This shall be done by using already created estimations on global glacial ice thicknesses, and digital elevation models. These shall be used to estimate the depth and volume of lakes which maybe created in the future. We shall then compare what these future landscapes shall look like using modern day locations which are either transitioning from a glaciated to deglaciated environment with glacial lakes dominating the landscape (Cordillera Blanca, Peru), and locations that are entirely deglaciated and that the once glacial lakes, now remain (e.g. The Lake District, UK). In these localities, mapping of the moraine dams will aid in providing an understanding of where future lakes may develop. The output of this research will aid in giving an understanding on the location of future lakes within western Canada, which will assist in future decision making of the local government into water availability in an unpredictable climate.