4 year PhD opportunity
Development of an Online Decision Support Tool for Hydrogen Storage in Community Renewable Energy Systems
GENCOMM (GENerating energy secure COMMunities) is a €9.3 million project funded by the EU Interreg North-West Europe (NWE) programme, whose aim is to demonstrate the use of hydrogen (H2) as an energy storage technology in community renewable energy systems. Using H2 allows intermittent renewable energy (wind, solar, biomass) to be stored and/or transformed into other energy products such as electricity, vehicle fuel, biomethane, heat, and valuable chemicals. This will increase penetration of renewable energy, reduce emissions, and increase energy security in communities. GENCOMM will achieve its aim by: (1) building and operating three pilot-scale renewable H2 energy storage sites, (2) creating technical and economic models of plant performance, (3) developing an online map-based decision support tool (DST) that will assist others in developing renewable H2 systems in their own communities, and (4) fostering a Europe-wide Community H2 Forum (CH2F). NUI Galway will lead the development of the DST, and the establishment of the CH2F.
The activities that will be carried out by the NUI Galway PhD student are: (1) incorporation of the technical and economic models developed by project partners into an online map-based DST, (2) establishment of the CH2F, (3) modelling the integration of additional renewable resources and technologies into the H2 framework, (4) exploration of the synergies between electrolytic H2 production, biomethane production by anaerobic digestion, and bio-SNG production by gasification in a Power to Gas (P2G) system. The NUI Galway student will work closely with all project partners in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland and the UK. As a GENCOMM team member, there will be opportunities for collaboration and research exchanges with partner universities; Free University of Brussels (Belgium), ENSI Caen and INSA Rouen (France).
Duration: 1st September 2017 – 30th August 2021
For more information, please see pdf: GENCOMM PhD
