Newton Fund-Integrating water cooled concentrated photovoltaics with waste heat reuse

Highly concentrated photovoltaic (HCPV) systems exploit concentrated solar flux using cheap optical components in lieu of large area, expensive photovoltaic cells. However, HCPV chips - due to their higher energy flux - generate considerable amount of waste heat which lowers their energy conversion efficiency. Novel microscale water cooling systems (i.e. microfluidic chips) can effectively regulate the photovoltaics cell temperature, thereby enhancing the cell energy efficiency. Additionally, the heat extracted by the coolant can be reused in:
a. Food and Pharmaceutical stage: to run an absorption refrigeration unit (where evaporation of a working fluid causes cooling) for food preservation and storage of vaccines, that require considerable energy use.
b. Water: membrane based water desalination processes to make saline water suitable for domestic and agricultural use
c. Fuel: for efficient production biodiesel
Integrating water cooled HCPV systems with one or more of these waste heat recovery technologies can have major positive impact on water, energy, food, healthcare and environmental challenges faced by Brazil - this is very well-aligned with the 'Food energy water environment nexus' theme.

The impact of our proposed international collaboration, we believe, is perfectly in synch with the proposal call, and can be summarised as follows.

ODA relevance: The proposed vision to integrate (combine) an efficient renewable energy system - water cooled HCPVs - with waste heat recovery technologies for food and pharmaceutical storage, fresh water production and efficient biodiesel production, will demonstrably contribute in solving the multi-prong food, energy, water and environment nexus problems. Thus, the project will facilitate unique scientific expertise - both for the UFRJ team and the Brazilian industrial partners to be engaged in at the project end. UK funds will help develop microscale diagnostics and thermofluidics expertise, vital to realize our vision. The integrated system will promote sustainable Brazilian growth, and be well-suited for communities with lack of electricity/water/fuel/conservation and/or remote locations without infrastructure for research/humanitarian/mining/extractive activities. It can also serve as an alternative self-contained system for future sustainable urban or rural housing/small buildings and/or emergency system kits in natural disaster affected areas. Thus, the work is very well aligned with the ODA objectives.

Global Impact: According to the UN, global energy and food demand are predicted to increase by around 50% by 2030 while that of water by 30%. The depleting earth resources and increasing demand due to projected rise in global population and its urbanization make it imperative to develop novel sustainable technologies. The proposed research on a combined system - harnessing electrical energy from high efficiency, water cooled HCPVs and using the resulting waste heat for food and pharmaceutical storage, water desalination and efficient biodiesel (fuel) production - offers a holistic approach to address the complex nexus challenges from humanities demand for food, water, energy and need for environmental care.

Impact on the UK and Brazil Economy and Society: Brazil is world's the 8th largest energy consumer and 10th largest producer (US EIA 2010). Wind and solar power are expected to account for 33% of its power generation in the next decade - this clearly makes the research on HCPV systems useful. 20% of the Brazil's GDP is agriculture based. Despite ready access to water, prolonged and recurring droughts are a threat to Brazil's energy security. UK has a target to reduce carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 and obtaining 15% of its energy from renewables by 2020, according to the 2012 UK Renewables Energy Roadmap. Thus, the nexus theme has direct relevance to both countries and there is clear need for developing a knowledge base on the topic - many government initiatives have recognized the need, for example, UK Energy programme, Food security programme etc. As a direct confirmation of its timeliness, the proposed vision is perfectly aligned with the EPSRC sandpit on water energy food nexus (http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/calls/sandpitwaterenergyfoodnexus/) and, we believe, an excellent match to the nexus theme in current call, focused on Brazil's development.

Establishment of international collaboration: Given the truly global nature of problems pertaining to food, water, energy and environment nexus, they require a geographically informed approach to solutions that leverages the complementary experiences, skill-set and expertise of researchers from different countries. The current short term project will initiate a fruitful sharing of expertise between the UK (UCL) and Brazilian (UFRJ) team on this timely subject and lay the foundation for a longer term collaboration between the two partner institutions. The UFRJ team's expertise heat transfer modelling and renewable energy system is complementary to UCL team's strong expertise in diagnostics and nanotechnology - the complementarity will help capture the full scope of the proposed vision.