Published:
Energy networks, low carbon jet fuels and sustainable data centre projects from Heriot-Watt University have won three awards and two highly commended prizes at an illustrious global-competition.
The teams were successful in the categories of Information Technology and Transport in the 2019 Innovation Awards hosted by the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) on Wednesday, November 13 in London.
The big victory of the night was the announcement as the winner of the E&T Innovation prize for 2019 - which is the main yearly innovation prize that IET awards.
The Innovation awards recognise and celebrate the very best new innovations across the breadth of engineering and technology.
Picking up the Transport Innovation award was Professor Mercedes Maroto-Valer from Heriot-Watt's Research Centre Carbon Solutions (RCCS) and Associate Principal for Global Sustainability who spoke of the success of the University.
She said: “It was a fantastic event and an outstanding achievement for Heriot-Watt. We demonstrated the world leading innovations we are developing across a wide range of engineering and technology areas.
“To receive three awards and two highly commended prizes is indeed a true celebration of Heriot-Watt 's reputation on innovation and impactful research.”
The Network Constraints Early Warning System (NSEWS), led by Dr Valentin Robu and Prof David Flynn, develops algorithms to extract information about missing cable assets and voltage excursions in partnership with SP Energy Networks. The project was awarded the E&T Innovation of the Year and Information Technology Award.
On winning, Dr Valentin Robu said: “We are delighted to have won both the Information Systems Award and IET's inaugural E&T Innovation of the Year prize at this year's Innovation Awards. The award highlights a very successful collaboration between the Smart Systems Group at Heriot-Watt University and the project team at SP Energy Networks, Dr Maizura Mokhtar, Caroline Loughran, Jim Whyte, Ciaran Higgins and Fiona Fulton.
“The methods we've developed are at the forefront of research efforts in this area and have resulted in publications in top international journals and conferences, such as CIRED (the International Conference on Electricity Distribution) and IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid.”
The Transport Innovation Award was given for RCCS's creation of low carbon jet fuel, that helps to realise the energy transition for the aviation sector through the introduction of a new sustainable aviation fuel. This project also picked up the Highly Commended Prize in the Sustainability & Environmental Impact category.
The RCCS team also received Highly Commended Prize in the Information Technology category for their sustainable computing through innovative cooling and power generation. This innovation demonstrated a highly competitive engineering process to recover waste heat energy from data centres and convert it into zero-emission cooling and power provision.
E&T Innovation of the Year
Network Constraints Early Warning System (NCEWS), Heriot-Watt University and SP Energy Networks
Transport Award
Low carbon jet fuel, Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University
Information Technology Award
Network Constraints Early Warning System (NCEWS), Heriot-Watt University and SP Energy Networks
Sustainability & Environmental Impact, Highly Commended Prize
Low carbon jet fuel, Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University
Information Technology, Highly Commended Prize
Sustainable computing through innovative cooling and power generation, Research Centre for Carbon Solutions (RCCS) at Heriot-Watt University
Susan Kerr
Communications Officer
T: 0131 451 3242
E: susan.kerr@hw.ac.uk