UKERC Energy Summer School 2023, Newcastle

This June I travelled to Newcastle for the first time to take part in the UKERC International Summer School “Global Just Transition: Equity in Net Zero”. The school brought together more than 70 brilliant students and young researchers from all over the world to provide a platform for networking and discussion. Of course, the main focus of the discussions was on the energy transition problems: how will the energy system transform, how can we make this transformation more sustainable, and how can we guarantee equity (e.g., for different regions, countries, consumers, etc.) during this transition? Over the five days of the school, we participated in various academic sessions, workshops, and tours. In addition, on the last day, we presented our group work on a real case study of the energy transition in Zambia.

I am grateful to the UKERC and Newcastle University for this networking opportunity. It was a great experience to see so many inspired people and hear their ideas!

This is what our day-to-day sessions and activities looked like:

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Poster sessions:

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Particularly interesting was the visit to InTEGReL, a new lab for testing integrated energy technologies such as electricity, gas, transport, and hydrogen. Many facilities have been built here from scratch, including the hydrogen-fuelled home, a project aimed to test the efficiency and safety of using hydrogen in households.

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There are many challenges in using hydrogen for cooking and heating as its physics is different from that of natural gas. You can see in the video that the flame behaves not like on the gas hobs we are used to:

Some nice photos of the Newcastle University campus:

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And a few unusual pictures of Newcastle:

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Andrey Churkin (Андрей Чуркин) 2023