Supporting regional decarbonisation
Working with businesses and organisations to support regional decarbonisation through innovation, collaboration, and impactful solutions
Project summary
The Challenge
Decarbonisation is a target for many organisations but they face significant barriers, including aging infrastructure, limited budgets, daily operational needs and lack of technical knowledge.
The Approach
A collaborative approach, utilising science-backed tools and practical roadmaps that balance energy savings, comfort, and cost.
The Outcome
Through our science-led solutions we are helping Yorkshire and the Humber cut emissions and support a sustainable regional transition.
Institutes and centres
Lead academics
Project Partners
The Challenge
The energy supply sector has made significant reductions in its greenhouse gas emissions. To reach net zero by 2050, buildings and surface transport must also reduce emissions. In buildings, both homes and non-domestic, the challenge lies in switching inefficient systems with solutions that are both technically sound and practically viable.
Many organisations face significant barriers, including aging infrastructure, limited budgets, and daily operational needs. They urgently require science-backed tools and practical roadmaps that balance energy savings, comfort, and cost.
Dr Cheng Zeng at the Aura Innovation Centre
The research team
Dr Cheng Zeng
Lecturer in Renewable Energy & Sustainable Technologies, Energy and Environment Institute
Mr Zhichu Wang
PhD researcher, Energy and Environment Institute
Dr Linda Whicker
Senior Lecturer, University of Hull
Dr Zishang Zhu
Former Lecturer in Sustainable Energies, Energy and Environment Institute
The Approach
At the heart of our work is high-impact scientific research into low-carbon technologies for buildings and industry. For example, through our innovative dew point cooling project, we successfully demonstrated for the first time the real-world operation of highly-efficient cooling in a live data centre. The insights gained from system testing, performance modelling, and energy analysis provide a strong evidence base for our applied work.
In every regional collaboration project, we begin by assessing current conditions through site surveys, preliminary data analysis, and stakeholder engagement. We then develop and evaluate tailored decarbonisation solutions.
Research highlights
- At Europa House, we evaluated a serious of low carbon retrofit solutions for a landmark office building.
- At Hull City Council and university data centres, we demonstrated our highly-efficient dew point cooling technology, transforming the technology from laboratory to real-life demonstrations.
- At Hull Truck Theatre, we incorporated tailored occupancy patterns into our studies to evaluate net-zero heating integrating with renewable energy generation and storage options to maximise the consumption of low carbon energy in day-to-day operations.
- At Hymers College, we created a digital twin energy model of the school campus to evaluate options including sustainable heating, industry waste heat recovery for community heating, demand reduction, renewable energy, and battery storage, helping the school optimise its long-term investment strategy.
Hymers College campus model by Dr Cheng Zeng
The Impact
The outcome focuses on using science-led solutions to help Yorkshire and the Humber region cut emissions and support a sustainable regional transition.
Our collaborations demonstrate how impactful research can unlock meaningful change. The cooling research project provides the technical foundation for climate-adaptive systems, which have now been deployed in pilot projects. The data centre demonstration showed electricity energy savings of up to 90%, with follow-up long-term assessments under way. Hymers College now has a credible pathway to decarbonisation, an approach replicable for other schools and colleges. At Europa House and Hull Truck Theatre, our analysis has set the stage for sustainable energy upgrades in a landmark cultural space.
Importantly, each of these projects feeds back into the research cycle. We gather real-world performance data to validate energy models, understand operational constraints, and identify user behaviours that influence energy use. This strengthens both the academic knowledge base and the practical toolkit available to partners.
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