News
Robert Gracie and Maurice Dusseault
Enhanced geothermal systems (EGSs) take advantage of heat deep beneath the Earth’s surface, forcing water through an engineered set of fractures at high pressure. The resulting steam can then be used to generate electricity or to heat buildings. However, this complex process is vulnerable to short-circuiting— a positive feedback loop in which the thermal contraction of cooled regions of the reservoir leads to increased fluid flow through these regions and diversion of fluid away from…
Robert Gracie and Bruce Gee
Exploiting geothermal power is easy in volcanic regions like Iceland, where geology brings heat from the Earth’s core close to the surface. In other places, however, accessing this source of renewable energy requires enhanced geothermal systems (EGS).
These systems use a network of channels created by hydraulic fracturing. Water pumped down one borehole extracts heat from rocks a kilometre or more underground as it travels through those channels and then brings it to the surface via a second…
Prof. Claudio Canizares
Dr. Claudio Canizares, a world-renowned researcher, is a Professor and the Hydro One Endowed Chair at the Electrical and Computer Engineering (E&CE) Department of the University of Waterloo. He is an expert on remote microgrids and has collaborated with Canadian Solar for the deployment of this technology in the Northern Communities of Canada. In the past, Dr. Canizares has worked with the Kasabonika Lake First Nation (KLFN) community in Northern Ontario, where a one-year measuring campaign…
Nicholas Mercer, Paul Parker, Amy Hudson and Debbie Martin
Shifting electricity generation from diesel to greener options like wind or solar power would cut greenhouse gas emissions in off-grid communities. But not all technologies are compatible with local land use and community values, so how do the people who live there feel about renewables?
To find out, the NunatuKavut Community Council’s Director of Research, Amy Hudson, invited WISE researchers Nicholas Mercer and Paul Parker and Inuk researcher Debbie Martin to southeast Labrador, where their…
Mohammad Hasan Ravanji,Claudio A. Cañizares and Mostafa Parniani
One of the crucial jobs of North American grid operators is keeping the frequency of the electricity as close to 60 hertz as possible. Mismatches between electricity generation and demand can shift that number higher or lower, damaging equipment, triggering blackouts and causing other problems.
To keep the system within safe margins, operators temporarily speed up or slow down the massive turbines at conventional generating plants, releasing or absorbing energy as required. But with renewables…
Nitin Padmanabhan, Kankar Bhattacharya, Mohamed Ahmed
In recent years, there has been a significant deployment of battery energy storage systems (BESSs) in the electricity grids around the world. The important characteristics of BESS such as ability to act both as generation and load, fast response time, high ramp rate etc. makes them promising and viable options for the system operators to reduce the peak demand, facilitate renewable energy integration.
In jurisdictions where electricity is bought and sold through wholesale markets, BESS owners…
Truzaar Dordi | 30 Under 30 Sustainability Award
WISE Energy Policy Research Fellow
Truzaar Dordi (PhD Candidate, Climate Finance, University of Waterloo) is selected to be featured as one of this year's top 30 under 30 sustainability leaders by Corporate Knights! His research focuses on pathways for low-carbon transition through social and financial movements. He is also a recipient of the Energy Policy Research Fellowship with the Energy Council of Canada (ECC) in partnership with the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE).
Truzaar’s research on stranded assets in…
An article by Prof. Jatin Nathwani and Colleagues
Published in the Journal of Energy Conversion and Management
The original article can be found here.
The global destructive effects of carbon dioxide emissions and the importance of energy storage for grid stability and peak shaving applications are in deep concern. In this regard, this paper investigates the recycling of carbon dioxide from gas-fired power plant emissions into synthetic natural gas based on a novel power-to-gas process with the aim of chemical energy storage and emission reduction. The hybrid power-to-gas process proposed in this paper…
Cheng Du, Xiaochu Wang, Wei Chen, Shouhua Feng, J. Wen, and Yimin A. Wu
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere keep rising, warming up our planet. And that has many researchers looking at two key catalytic reactions — photocatalysis and electrocatalysis — that can convert CO2 into hydrocarbons. It’s an exciting idea, using either sunlight or electricity to activate a catalyst that transforms CO2 pollution into fuels and other valuable chemicals.
However, current techniques tend to create products with just a single carbon atom. That’s a problem, because…
Ambika Opal And Jatin Nathwani
Access to energy is a powerful catalyst of sustainable development. Energy access has large impacts on 13 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, ranging from alleviating poverty through the creation of micro-enterprises, to improving health by limiting indoor air pollution created by traditional cooking fuels, to strong climate action by creating decarbonized energy systems. Approximately a third of humanity (2.5 billion) does not have access to affordable, reliable, and sustainable sources…
Page Options
