Energy efficiency and decarbonising heating

Decarbonising the heating of buildings represents one of the major challenges for the energy transition. Our research on reducing CO₂ emissions from heating buildings includes exploring geothermal energy, heat pumps, short- and long-term thermal energy storage, building thermal mass and ventilation. These approaches are being combined in a major case study at St John’s College and across the wider university.

Other examples of the variety of research we are doing on energy efficiency include work on lubrication to reduce energy loss to friction and work on improving the efficiency of electrolysers, which is crucial for the development of renewable energy technologies.