As Britain’s greenest university, Manchester is top-ranked in the UK and third in the world for its benchmarks achieved against the independent 2024 QS World University Sustainability Rankings.   All its degree programmes are certified against the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

“She’s electric. Can I be electric, too?”

Now all its buildings and institutes – including part of the world-ranking Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, the Alliance Business School, the John Rylands Library and the Schuster physics labs where the Nobel-prize winning material graphene was developed by UK-citizens Professors Andre Geim & Kostya Novoselov in 2004 – will from autumn 2025 be powered by clean electricity made from Essex’s light.

Famously rainy Manchester’s biggest university has signed a deal with PV park developers Environmena, to buy four-fifths of the 58GWh output of the developers’ approved solar farm at Medebridge, close to South Ockendon and the Thames.

Expected to generate first late next year, the Medebridge project’s 104,000 solar panels will cover 175 acres of low-grade agricultural land – around 70 football pitches’ worth – next to a landfill site. At just over 46GWh every year, the Essex farm’s low carbon current will meet 65 per cent of the University’s power needs.

Enviromena says Medebridge will deliver greater biodiversity to Essex’s estuary edgelands. Preserved native grasses and wildflower meadows will surround the panels’ racks, encouraging nesting sites & rearing of wildlife, including bugs at the bottom of food chains.

“All I need is the air that I breathe”

Off-taking most of the farm’s clean power for a committed decade will speed Manchester University on its journey to intended carbon neutrality by 2038.  In 2022 the uni voted to terminate its investments in coal, oil and gas, and to reduce the carbon intensity of its other endowments by 37%.

Professor of climate and energy policy Carly McLachlan, the university’s academic lead for carbon, observed: “The important thing for us in developing this relationship (with Enviromena) was that our commitment would add new renewable energy capacity to the UK electricity system. Through our long-term purchasing commitment, we have played a key role in bringing this development forward – maximising the positive impact of our purchasing power.”

Baggy, not boggy. Still “mad for it…”

Finance manager Lee Barlow, the university’s lead on the Essex-sourced deal, added: “After nearly three years of rigorous procurement negotiations, we are proud to announce this landmark agreement, which (delivers) price certainty and supply stability.

“Securing this 10-year corporate PPA despite such adversity is a huge accomplishment and holds special significance as we celebrate the University’s bicentennial year.”

Enviromena’s chief commercial officer Lee Adams responded: “This significant partnership with the University of Manchester demonstrates the shared commitment of an influential, large-scale organisation, which, at the time it celebrates its 200-year anniversary, is taking steps towards reducing its carbon footprint through the technologies of tomorrow”

Founded in Britain by Sami Khoreibi in 2007, Enviromena is privately owned by investors Arjun Infrastructure Partners.

The developer currently manages over 300MW of renewables projects, including in the UAE, Egypt & Jordan. In the UK and Italy alone it is bringing forward elements in a 3GW-plus pipeline of green energy projects.

Straight outta Purfleet, twisting my melons

For investors Arjun Infrastructure, head of ESG Rhyadd Keaney-Watkins commented: “For Arjun and our investors, this deal between Manchester University and Enviromena is an exciting example of the positive real-world outcomes which infrastructure can deliver.

“With a fivefold increase in the UK’s solar generation capacity needed by 2035, and with more and more institutions following Manchester University’s leadership in decarbonising operations, there is an important role for developers such as Enviromena to deliver the ‘green electrons’ needed as part of net zero and the energy transition.”

Interest declared: the author was educated in south Essex and in Manchester

The post “Soundddddd, our kid!” Manchester Uni sorts itself for PV & watts…from Essex appeared first on theenergyst.com.

The city’s Blackburn Meadows renewable energy park is home to pioneering innovations headed by E.ON, assisted by Chesterfield Special Cylinders, the University of Sheffield’s Energy Institute  and partners across the region.

The project explores ways to generate green hydrogen, for use by the city’s steelmakers and south Yorkshire’s energy-intensive industries.

Strong desire from steelmakers has been unearthed in the project’s early stages to find a cleaner alternative to natural gas in firing forges and industrial processes.  Operational findings from the trial’s three first manufacturers is that sustainable hydrogen maintains output quality, at the same time cutting emissions by 41.8% against natural gas.  The three debutant manufacturers are on course to save 3,500 tonnes of CO₂ per year.

£1 million of Government funding , from D-ESNZ’s £ 1 billion Net Zero Innovation Portfolio (NZIP) backs the Yorkshire partners’ desk assessment of commercial and engineering needs in generating, transporting and using hydrogen, as well as developing its commercial offer to industrial customers. If that is successful, the next stage will be a technical pilot project at the Blackburn Meadows sewage processor site, on the city’s fringes at Tinsley.  Expansion could follow, if the project is taken forward to a full commercial demonstration.

E.ON leads the initiative alongside Chesterfield Special Cylinders, Glass Futures, University of Sheffield Energy Institute and Sheffield Forgemasters.

Chris Lovatt, E.ON’s UK Solutions’ chief operating officer, said: “Hydrogen will play a significant role in our energy future, mainly powering energy-intensive industries and long-distance transport. It sits alongside the drive for heat pumps meeting domestic heating needs and a greater role for district energy schemes in urban areas.

“The first stages of our trial show the technology works and can support the industry’s needs for alternative fuels as well as Sheffield’s wider sustainability ambitions. We know there are challenges to overcome before this becomes a viable solution for industry but the success so far has been rewarded by further funding from Government to explore the potential of green hydrogen as a solution for Sheffield’s world-renowned steelmakers.”

From Sheffield Uni’s Energy Institute, Professor Mohamed Pourkashanian responded: “We are thrilled that this project has received funding from the UK Government to progress to a second stage.

The work we’re doing for this project at our Energy Institute, including computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD) modelling and in-depth hydrogen research, will help bring us a step closer to vital industrial decarbonisation and beyond.

 “It is increasingly important to get the technological solutions we need to reduce emissions right first time, so carrying out these detailed and industry-supported projects at the University of Sheffield Energy Institute means we can test, scale and ultimately implement these alternative solutions as efficiently as possible.”

The post Steel city forges plan to swap gas for green hydrogen appeared first on theenergyst.com.

Watercycle Technologies, a deep tech company focused on furthering high-yield, low-cost, mineral extraction, is pledging its unique technology to magic the battery industry’s most valuable metal from a shaft of super-heated salty water beneath Lazio, near Rome.

Its partner is Energia Minerals (Italia), a subsidiary of quoted Altamin, owner of mines in central Italy. Using the British firm’s propriatory DLEC approach – Direct Lithium Extraction & Crystallisation – , the duo will extract samples from a borehole in Lazio.  In October Altamin won two exploration licences for lithium from the region’s government.

Subsurface strata running from Rome north into Tuscany provide Italy’s bedrock for geothermal brines. Temperatures up to and beyond 200 degrees Centrigrade run at least four geothermal power stations.

With its UK partner Cornish Lithium, Watercycle are already piloting extraction of the valuable metal from brine-filled caves and aquifers under the West Country.

DLEC’s compatibility with a wide range of water salinities delivers, or so Watercycle claims – dramatic reductions in costs, carbon emissions and water consumption compared with current processes

Baggy, chemical, and happy on Mondays

Under the deal Watercycle will test brines extracted from a borehole in central Italy.  Once the waters’ specific chemistry is understood, dedicated membranes will be fabricated by the team.  Watercycle will then pass the brine through its DLEC process, and analyse both the resulting lithium-rich extraction and the lithium-purged residue.

Watercycle will then process the lithium-rich solution to produce lithium carbonate salts. This latter stage it presents as a key differentiator compared to standard extraction practices.

If successful, the two parties will examine the potential for initiating large-scale testing in Italy.

“Each brine has different characteristics”, explained Watercycle CEO Dr Seb Leaper.

“It’s part of our development model to test multiple brines to further prove the efficacy of our technology and provide leading edge, sustainable solutions for lithium and critical mineral extraction from them.

Watercycle’s CTO and co-founder Dr Ahmed Abdelkarim added: ““Our technology has taken years of development both within the University of Manchester and now within Watercycle.

“We are not only successfully partnering with lithium brine developers but also making fantastic headway in the extraction of multiple critical minerals including cobalt and graphite from spent batteries and the utilisation of our processes in desalination, critical in today’s world where water shortages are being becoming more pronounced.

In materials science, Manchester University, home to Alan Turing and early computing, has more recently been world-renowned for graphene. The super-strong lightweight material won the 2010 Nobel Prize for physics for its developers Professors Andre Geim & Kostya Novoselov.

Watercycle’s labs are in the university’s Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre.

Interest declared: the author was educated partly at Manchester University.

The post Salted (sic) for Is and whizz: Mancs brave Italian brine to lift lithium appeared first on theenergyst.com.