The UK has become the first major economy in the world to pass a net-zero emissions law, setting an ambitious target to bring all greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2050. The development and adoption of more energy-efficient materials is an important enabler for the UK to achieve this goal.
In September 2019, the Henry Royce Institute submitted a ‘Big Idea’ to the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council on ‘Materials for the Energy Transition’. The UK materials community, coordinated by Royce in collaboration with the Institute of Physics (IOP) and the Institute for Manufacturing (Cambridge), has come together to develop roadmaps on these four key areas, to outline opportunities for materials science to contribute to net-zero emissions targets by 2050.
- Materials for low-carbon methods of hydrogen generation
- Materials in photovoltaic systems
- Decarbonisation of Heating and Cooling Systems
- Low loss electronics
The webinar full slide deck is available here.
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On 15 June 2020, Royce and IOP held a road map webinar to update the materials community, policymakers and funders on the ongoing roadmapping activity. The webinar was opened by Baroness Brown of Cambridge who explored the importance of the roadmapping in light of the 2019 CCC report. Attendees then heard from four world-leading materials scientists who discussed the roadmapping in the context of the broader energy research field. The technical leads for each of the four roadmap areas then presented overviews of the key findings. |
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The Executive Summary highlighting the key findings of the four roadmaps is available here. Click here for the full details reported by the Henry Royce Institute |
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