Grantham Scholar Mahdi Ahmed researches sustainable energy choices for companies.
Companies are required to make rapid changes over the next decade to meet UK and global commitments towards net zero. To achieve this, companies are facing large capital expenditures, with a huge impact on their operational costs. This work would provide the ability to guide selection of energy systems and optimisation to meet their requirements by producing tested models. This is a substantial change that energy companies face, and therefore the likelihood of companies not making optimal decisions is extremely high. Especially with the large capital cost involved, the impact of an un-optimised decision is large, and will have a long-term impact on the company, so it’s critical that the tool is made available soon. The methodology must be built in a way that considers a huge variety of different processes, with the ability to reuse and recycle materials from the processes to ensure that these net-zero and lower energy requirements are met.
In this video by Industrial Decarbonisation Research and Innovation Centre (IDRIC), Mahdi shared his experience of undertaking a PhD at the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering.
In October 2023, Mahdi also attended IDRIC’s Early Career Research Industry and Policy Engagement Workshop in London. The event sought to create closer links between academia and researchers to accelerate the deployment of new low carbon technologies.