The Energy Informatics Group provides analyses of measured data across different energy vectors (natural gas, liquid fuels and electricity), across supply and demand, through different temporal scales (hours to years) and across different scales (national to regional to local to building and component level).
The research combines elements of data science; signal processing, machine learning, modelling and visualisation, all with an energy supply / demand focus. The decarbonisation of heating and cooling and understanding how demand profiles may change with different technology and behavioural choices is of significant importance. This impacts how much overnight storage is required in different future energy scenarios, itself an exciting research question.
Being part of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage provides opportunities for collaboration with colleagues in thermal energy storage and energy policy, and across the Birmingham Energy Institute.
Specifically, the research of the Energy Informatics Group aims to:
- Help develop the Energy Analytics field as a specific energy discipline that brings together several academic specialities
- Publish reference data sets on energy, and to help others to do so
- Provide a better understanding of current energy systems, electricity, gas and liquid fuels, in order to help inform choices about future energy systems
- Build tools and guidance to help local authorities, metro mayors and local energy partnerships to better understand the energy flows within their geographies
- Increase public understanding of energy systems and transitions through visualisations and other public facing outputs
- Build a knowledge base of future energy demand and supply profiles
The group strive to help inform the wider debate around the choices for future energy systems; particularly to increase wider public knowledge about the challenges and opportunities associated with transitioning to a net-zero future. From a UK perspective, this might help to build and sustain the social licence that successive Governments will need to deliver a net-zero economy.