MEGS gets underway
The
Midlands Energy Graduate Schools (MEGS) is a dynamic project between the University of Nottingham,
University of Birmingham and Loughborough University. Combining the capabilities in energy related research and teaching at leading universities in the UK, was set up to meet the growing demand in the UK for more highly trained low carbon technologies researchers by delivering a mix of both specialist knowledge and multidisciplinary training.
Two of the MEGS recruits are Dani Gent and James Hughes from Loughborough. Their very different projects illustrate the range and importance of the topics MEGS is tackling. Here's what they've been up to.
Dani Gent's research project is entitled: Exploring the adoption of photovoltaic technologies: the case of rural Central America.
She left the UK in November 2010 bound for Honduras and Nicaragua to study how the provision of energy affects equality in developing countries. Before she left , she explained:
My research focuses on the household
impacts of PV technology adoption across two rural Central American communities. The study ... will involve nine months of in-depth qualitative research. The extent to which these communities have accepted PV as a solution to
meeting their energy needs, and how this is perceived to alleviate rural energy poverty, will be explored. Achieving universal energy access to the estimated 2-3 billion people off grid” by the year 2030, is a goal recently set by the United Nations. Distributed renewable energy technologies have been posited as a means of electrifying rural communities isolated from the grid. One area I am particularly interested in is the everyday impacts that technological interventions, like PV, have on women, given they are often responsible for energy procurement in the Global South. I have always been interested in Latin America, and was fortunate enough to travel to Honduras last summer whilst volunteering with a children’s charity. It was a great opportunity to familiarise myself with the region and make some key contacts. I can’t wait to get started with my field work!
James Hughes, with an MSc in Applied Meteorology and Climatology from the University of Birmingham, already had an interest in wind! Why not take it further with a PhD in renewable energy? He explains:
I met Prof Simon Watson at CREST in Loughborough University for a chat about the project he had available, titled modelling offshore wind, which went well as it transpired my skills and knowledge were very well suited to the topic and in October this year (2010) I started. I will eventually be using the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) mesoscale model on the university computer cluster to simulate offshore wind fields over a range of temporal resolutions, with applications of this research ranging from seasonal forecasts of power output to assessment of operational conditions of turbines.
I am very much looking forward to developing the model and incorporating new technologies, such as lidar observations, to improve the accuracy of the model outputs and to enhance the
efficiency both of the modelling and of the turbine to which the output relates.
Acknowlegement: These articles have been taken from original MEGS newsletter.,
For further information about Loughborough University's role in MEGS, contact Dr Paul Rowley.
For general information about MEGS, contact:
Justine Gruszkos
Tel: 01158467661
Email: megs-administrator@nottingham.ac.uk