Lews Castle College Technology Department

Energy Engineering News

There is a lot happening in Energy Engineering at College UHI (LCC) in addition to regular teaching. The purpose of this newsletter is to let everyone know about the projects and excellent work undertaken by our students and staff throughout 2018, to recognise the hard work of the researchers, and to acknowledge all the external help received. Hydrogen Technology Competition In January, a group of students entered an international competition where the aim was to demonstrate that hydrogen technology could be viable in certain large-scale niche applications. Ewan Finlayson, Viktor Malovs, Alick Maclean and Giuseppe Petricca investigated a complex scenario where the Western Isles Hospital would be powered by a large wind turbine, with a hydrogen system used for energy balancing. The oxygen produced as the byproduct of electrolysis could be used for medical applications. Any excess hydrogen would be injected into the Gas Network. The students were mentored by Alasdair Macleod. Though the team did not win, they were the top ranked university group from all of Europe.

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Hydrogen Activity Analysis N e w Hydrogen Engine A detailed analysis of current hydrogen activity in and A company in Dunfermline, EIS Ltd, has Europe was conducted by LCC working with the Energy Skills invented a novel type of engine fuelled by Partnership to predict future activity and to plan suitable training hydrogen and with few moving parts. The so that Scotland will be ready to supply workers with the Engineering energy group was asked to test appropriate skills and qualifications to satisfy the future needs of the concept by building a small prototype to the energy industry. establish a proof of concept.

It was concluded that whilst job opportunities currently are The work was done by Victor Malovs with limited, significant growth is expected as hydrogen technology is guidance from Alasdair Macleod and huge pulled along by the transition to battery-electric vehicles over the assistance in the construction of a safe test next two decades. Growth is also expected in areas such as environment provided by technicians Murdo electricity grid balancing/security of supply. Hydrogen Macsween and Murdo Maclean. opportunities are expected to emerge in Scotland as soon as 2020 because hydrogen is a key part of both UK and Scottish The work was very challenging and safety was Government 2050 CO2 target strategies and a number of relevant a primary concern. Following several months measures to reduce air pollution are being supported. However, of experimentation, it was shown that the the Scottish population is not currently being trained in readiness. concept was extremely promising and There are no nationally certified courses at practitioner level. potentially viable, though a great deal of There is a real need for a certified training that includes gas additional work is still needed to produce a handling, innovation and applications, and integration. successful commercial product.

An outline PDA (professional development award) in hydrogen As a result of this effort, the company is was developed and submitted to SQA in January. The detailed actively working with industrial partners to move the project to the next stage. Thanks to content will be determined later following discussion with the Brian Cross and his colleagues at ETP (Energy industry to identify specific needs. Thanks to Roddy Scott at ESP Technology Partnership) for funding the for funding this work, and the support of David Hogg (Bright work. Green Hydrogen) and Nigel Holmes (SHFCA).

Combined Heat and Power The H-CHP project is a €2 m, 3-year project, funded by EU Interreg and includes partners from Finland, Sweden, Iceland, Scotland and Ireland. The objective is to investigate whether the adoption of combined heat-and-power systems (CHP) as a clean energy source would be a viable option for the Northern Periphery and Arctic region. CHP systems differ from normal biomass or gas boilers in that they produce electricity for the home as well as heat. However, the fraction of electricity to heat is rather low and not enough to significantly contribute to the electricity demand of a typical home in Europe; as a result, the technology has not really taken off.

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

On the other hand, the balance of electricity to heat usage in older homes in areas of fuel poverty is expected to be much closer to the output of CHP systems and we hope to demonstrate this is indeed the case by installing boilers in some homes in the Western Isles. If the trials are successful, the end result will be another technology that could help address fuel poverty issues on the Islands. In March we produced a report on the first months of the project. Andrew Mackenzie and Alasdair Macleod presented the results at a project meeting in snowy Lulea in Northern Sweden. Data collection and analysis tasks were completed by Angus Murray and Viktor Malovs with assistance from our project partners TIG (Stewart Wilson and Brian Whitington). We need more people to enter information about their domestic energy usage so that homes can be selected for trials. Naomi Henderson has now joined the project team and will be encouraging people to fill in the online form.

Bringing Empty Homes into Use The ‘Taigh Zero’ project is an initiative to try to bring some of the empty homes in the Highlands and Islands back into use. These are usually old croft houses which are difficult to heat effectively. The new project builds on an earlier complete renovation concept investigated by Tighean Innse Gall the ‘As Ur’ project, and also an initiative by Comhairle nan Eilean Siar working with Scotframe to promote the design of a kit home more sympathetic to the island landscape. Though innovative and imaginative, both of these approaches to addressing housing issues in the islands were found to be too expensive. The concept in this new proposal is to renovate the main part of the house at lower cost for occasional use rooms (bedrooms, etc), but to clear the add-on (or lean-to) that is usually attached to the back and replace it with a standard extension that will form the main living accommodation. This extension will be zero energy and will be constructed in kit form by builders on the island. In the first phase of the project, optimal energy solutions will be identified by looking at the latest technological innovations in this field. The later construction phase has been aligned with the “Islands Deal”. In April we started looking at ways to fund the first research phase and formed a group to take this forward. This is led by Callum Ian Macmillan with help from Donna Smith (TIG), Dena Macleod (HHP), Ian McCulloch (HIE), Kenny Beaton (UHI) and Murdo Macleod (CnES, Vacant Housing Officer). The project concept is supported by MSP Alasdair Allan, the Construction Scotland Innovation Centre, Lewis Builders Ltd and O’Mac Construction Ltd, and meetings are ongoing.

Funding Opportunities As part of a never-ending effort to keep up to date with the latest development in energy, Alasdair Macleod attended meetings with the Fuel Cells and Hydrogen –Joint Undertaking (FCH-JU) in Brussels to learn about hydrogen funding opportunities. He also attended an event in Berlin in June to identify commercially valuable ideas emerging from European Fellowships. At a later MasterClass event in Sheffield, over 100 PhD students spent 2 days considering how to reduce fossil fuel use in Europe’s 27,000 islands. One case study introduced was the Isle of , with ideas emerging that ranged from the interesting to the bizarre. A recurring theme was hydrogen- powered ferries for the islands, a concept which is strongly supported by a leading Scottish expert on this subject, Martin Smith of the University of St Andrews, with whom discussions on the topic were held following a meeting of the Centre for Innovation in Energy Storage group (hosted by the University).

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

Peatland and Wind Farms Is it acceptable to build wind farms on peatland? The commonly held view is that the disturbed peat and disruption to the surrounding bog allows much of the trapped organic matter to decay releasing carbon dioxide. The result is expected to be massive carbon emissions that will cancel out the carbon savings associated with the operation of the wind farm for three or more years.

With support from the Point and Sandwick Trust, researcher Katharina Lutz from Germany visited Lews Castle College for 2 months to investigate the problem closely. Katharina looked at the ecology of the land around the Beinn Ghrideag wind farm. The peat depth near the wind farm The wind farm has been operational for 3 years hence some evidence of deterioration would be expected. The results were surprising: the surrounding peatland was healthy all the way up to the edge of the hard standings, and there was no evidence of lasting damage. On the basis of these results, the additional carbon ‘payback time’ for this wind farm as a result of being constructed on peatland was calculated to be only 3 months. Katharina’s work is available as a detailed report which may later be published. Thanks go to Point and Sandwick Trust for their sponsorship, and to Donald John Macsween in particular.

E a s y E P C s Greenspace Live Ltd has over the years developed sophisticated web-based software for calculating the energy performance of domestic and commercial buildings from a detailed building information model. The tool is extremely powerful, but a lot of knowledge and learning is needed to use it effectively. In a new collaborative project, LCC developed a way of allowing a non-specialist to easily access this software and benefit from its power. A low-cost laser system (LIDAR) was designed and tested that will allow a person to go round all the rooms in a building, quickly and automatically capturing the basic shape and dimensions of each. This information is then sent to a web application where boxes representing a scaled version of each room are dragged together to reform the building structure. Once assembled, the building envelope is automatically found by the software and sent to the Greenspace Live analysis engine for processing. The end result is an Energy Performance Certificate (EPC). The basic proof of concept was established and it is anticipated that a refined version of this product could have significant commercial potential. The project was broken down into two parts, a development and test phase, which were respectively funded through the ETP KEN II and ETP STEP programmes. Viktor Malovs developed the hardware, Angus Murray produced the software tools and Giuseppe Petricca conducted the tests. Thanks to Donald Macsween and Donald Macritchie of Greenspace Live for technical support and Brian Cross and colleagues at ETP for financial assistance. Also Catherine MacInnes (LCC) for managing the funding of this and other complex projects.

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

D r V o g l e r Wind Energy in Switzerland Congratulations to Arne Vogler on Andrew Mackenzie and Alasdair Macleod visited Zurich for a week completing his PhD titled ‘Wave to deliver a course on wind energy to 30 environmental engineering characterisation for high and medium students at ZHAW. The visit was hosted by Christoph Koller, a energy sites in Scotland’. There were a very lecturer at the university (who has visited Lews Castle College a large number of conference and journal number of times), and was funded under the Swiss-European publications associated with the thesis, Mobility Programme (SEMP). which demonstrates the substantial and The attitude to wind energy in Switzerland is very different to that wide-ranging work done by Arne in the in the UK, and refreshing. For example, a wind farm on the German- Marine Energy group over the years. Swiss border is turned off for an hour at dawn and dusk for the Arne’s Director of Studies was Alasdair safety of the bats in the area. Elegance of design, appearance in the Macleod, who has two other active PhD landscape, and the direct effect of wind turbines on the students. Vincenzo Ortisi is investigating environment are considered just as important as maximising energy the use of artificial intelligence in optimising production. A direct consequence of the lecture series is that 8 – 10 the performance and extending the lifetime students from the university will attend classes in Stornoway at of commercial hydrogen fuel cells. Lews Castle College for Semester 2 to learn more about energy and Vincenzo will submit his thesis at the end of the Island. the year. Viktor Malovs had a PhD proposal Thanks go to Christoph and his family for their wonderful accepted in October. The studentship is hospitality, and to Ruedi Schmid who was the first Swiss student to fully funded through the Bryden Centre visit Lews Castle College Engineering (in 2011), and who now runs Scotland-Ireland collaboration. The the award-winning solar PV design and installation company objective is to investigate low-cost Clevergie (http://www.clevergie.ch/). electrolysis methods for agricultural applications. Also in October, František Mikšík, a regular visitor to the Engineering Department, completed his PhD with his home institution, the Brno University of Technology. František did great work in the Western Isles determining the depth of a deep peat by electric field methods. We plan to progress this research in the next year. Students relaxing after the class looking out on Lake Zurich

Smart Grid Project TIG Tighean Innse Gall lead a Scottish The Perth and Kinross smart grid project is an attempt to find better ways Government funded project which of using renewable energy produced locally. The basic idea is to have a looks at a new way of financing trading scheme where you can sell excess electricity and move it to the house improvements for better purchaser using the existing electricity network. For example, a school with energy performance. The project PV panels will produce a lot of electricity during the summer holidays which will run for almost 2 years and the cannot be used. This could instead be sold to a nearby care home. role of LCC will be to assist with the Through links with Perth College, a bid for the first analysis and modelling monitoring and evaluation of phase of the project was prepared by LCC and submitted. Five submissions project results. Thanks to Brian will be selected at the end of the year with each awarded £30,000. The work Whittington (TIG) for successfully will be completed in the first half of 2019. The best of these will be awarded obtaining funding and including £150,000 to physically implement the model developed during the first LCC in the bid. phase. Naomi Henderson will work on this The complex application was skilfully prepared by Giuseppe Petricca with project for LCC. assistance from Viktor Malovs.

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

Sustainable Seaweed

LCC was funded £40,000 by NPA to prepare a €1.8m application for European funding to put measures in place to support SMEs in the seaweed industry in the Northern Atlantic region. The SW-GROW project will run for 3 years and will look at ways to reduce the environmental impact of seaweed farming and processing (less use of fossil fuels in drying; cultivation rather than wild harvesting; reuse and waste reduction). The product will be protected and branded, and supported by full characterisation to determine quality and DNA sequencing to identify the geographical source. LCC will lead the project and focus on energy aspects. Andrew Mackenzie was responsible for putting together the application and in an enormous effort over two months managed to assemble an impressive consortium of 34 partners. The submission is very strong and we are confident it will succeed. There has already been a lot of good feedback with two small companies wanting to start work even before project approval. Andrew was helped by Kenny Beaton (UHI) who liaised with SAMS, an associated project partner who have internationally recognised expertise in algae research.

OPERA consortium Islands Energy

LCC are part of the OPERA consortium led by the The wind farm constructed by Point and Sandwick University of Oulu in Finland. A €2m funding bid was Power has been a huge success and has had an submitted at the end of November. enormous impact on the community. Calum Macdonald and others at Point and Sandwick Power The aim of the project is to use advanced manufacturing have the still greater vision of an island that produces to drive innovation. Although access to advanced and consumes its own power. manufacturing labs is available to SMEs through a number of international initiatives, it is frequently the case that LCC will assist in the process by building a Western industrial employees (or entrepreneurs) rarely have the Isles Smart Grid energy model which will show the time to use what is usually very sophisticated equipment existing energy flows within the islands and identify requiring years of experience and practice. points where energy conversion and energy storage is required. We will look at different aspects of The project idea is to demonstrate to all SMEs in the demand-side management as well a variety of Highlands and Islands region what is possible with these renewable sources that could be adopted. Giuseppe technologies. SMEs can then consider how these Petricca will build a Matlab model and Angus Murray advanced materials and processes could impact on the is responsible for acquiring appropriate data and company to improve their products and services. The combining renewable sources using the Homer SMEs will then go though the normal innovation funding software package. channels to fund a new product or idea, drawing on existing expertise in universities around the region. LCC The project will run for 2 months and is funded by will deliver training and share their expertise in hydrogen. ETP. Again, thanks to Brian Cross and colleagues for financial support and guidance.

I o l a i r e To commemorate the centenary of the Iolaire tragedy, Malkie Maclean and Torcuil Crichton have arranged for the installation of an artwork on South Beach. A full–size outline of the ship is marked out in the beach by 280 wooden posts set in sand, one post for each person on board. Each post will be illuminated by its own LED spotlight. Alasdair Macleod and Murdo Maclean assisted in selecting lights that will operate underwater for the duration of the event, and helped identify wiring that will survive possible storm conditions. The image shows the view close to dawn from the on-site time-lapse camera installed by Alasdair MacCallum.

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

Puzzle Panel The Puzzle Panel concept is five linked stand-alone panels, each with two STEM problems or activities which students/pupils (individually or in teams) will work through sequentially. The boards are WiFi connected and if all the puzzles are completed before a game timer reaches zero, a box on the last panel opens to reveal a prize. The activities will be a mixture of physics, engineering, mathematics, and computing, and are all hands-on. All are intrinsically safe and under automated control - there is no need for an operator or technician to reset parts. The system is reconfigurable to vary the activities and encourage participants to repeat the experience.

The project is funded by the IET but is significantly behind schedule. A lot of progress has been made this month because of the involvement of Bryan France of Sign Print who produced very attractive panel designs. Thanks to Murdo Maclean (pictured above) who is responsible for the construction and electronics side of the project, and Murdo Macsween who manufactured the frames. Thanks also to Roddy Ferguson for supplying some materials and also for his assistance with all the project work this year.

T a i g h Z e r o The ‘Taigh Zero’ project continues to develop with a potential prototype house site having been identified. The next meeting of the group is scheduled for January 2019 to identify priorities and agree a plan for 2019.

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Lews Castle College Technology Department

Student Projects All third year BEng Energy Engineering students are required to complete a small energy project as part of their studies. Some of the projects this year could later develop into more significant funded projects (linking teaching with research). Here are some examples: Recycling Waste Plasterboard In the Western Isles, many older homes are being upgraded to reduce heat loss by fitting additional internal insulation. This usually involves the removal of old plasterboard which then has to be disposed of. This can be costly as it cannot be put to landfill. Local companies bear the high cost of disposal (via mainland export) and would welcome a lower cost local solution. The main constituent of plasterboard is gypsum. Recovered gypsum is potentially useful for agriculture to help soil structure and remove sodium ions. Gypsum applied to ground along with rotted animal manure can lead to a significant increase in vegetable production. Seaweed has been used as a fertilizer for centuries and with a huge amount taken ashore each year by storms. It may be that a combination of seaweed and gypsum recycled from plasterboard to neutralise any salt in the seaweed could result in heavier crops. The energy benefits include less manufactured fertilizer and less fuel used moving waste plasterboard to mainland UK for reprocessing. We will investigate the idea by working closely with ZHAW to use their FarmBot for rapid trialling. FarmBot is an open source system where a mechanism for planting, weeding, watering and feeding operates under computer control. The actuators are moved over a planter (typically of area 2m x 2m) on x-y tracks. Traditionally, testing the effect of different soil additions and treatments on plant growth required a large outdoor area. With the FarmBot we will develop a novel method of testing indoors with only the small area of the FarmBot planter by exploiting the high precision of the system to divide the available space into a grid of 36 isolated test plots (each of area 33cm x 33cm) to test multiple combinations of soil type/ manure/seaweed/sand/gypsum. By controlling light (UV lighting) and temperature, testing becomes season and location independent. Celine Gibaud, pictured to the right, is getting the project going by developing the prototype of a machine that can be taken to the site so that waste plasterboard can be fed in (like a paper shredder). The gypsum comes out powdered and bagged. There are many technical challenges to overcome such as separating the paper and dealing with nails. Using Less Energy in Older Buildings Sponsorship A recurring theme in the energy work at Lews Castle College is how we can Sebastien Rigard was an Energy use less energy in our older buildings for heating. One significant question Engineering student at LCC 4 that has not been explored in sufficient depth is the effect of the outer years ago, and he is now being rendering on the thermal performance of a building. Porous and shingled sponsored by his employer in surfaces can trap water, resulting in evaporative cooling that continues long France to spent 3 months in after the rain has stopped, particularly in the very windy conditions of the Stornoway learning more about west of Scotland. We are all aware of the incredible cooling effect of rain hydrogen and its applications. and wind together, and an outer wall that is a few degrees colder as a result We will welcome Sebastien in will draw more heat from the building. January. Sebastien will develop Should we smooth render all our buildings and cover with silicone water ways of making very small repellent paint? What colour? How do the economics stack up? hydrogen fuel cells in the dimensions of a standard ‘AA’ cell Antony Viera is starting the theoretical analysis and will also conduct using a 3—D printer. experiments with different types of outer wall renders to determine the extent of the temperature drop (if any). For more information on the projects featured above please contact Alasdair Macleod by e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone on 01851 770365.

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