Modelling and Optimization of Sustainable Thermal Energy Systems

With the looming catastrophic consequences of climate change resulting from accelerated global warming, today, more than ever, there is a need for accelerated development and deployment of clean, renewable, and sustainable energy systems. Globally, heating, and cooling account for about 50% of the final energy consumption and more than 40% of the total CO2 emissions. Clearly, complete decarbonization of our energy system requires that we find ways of decarbonizing our heating and cooling systems in both buildings and industry. In addition, decarbonizing our electricity generation systems requires the replacement or hybridization of the current fossil-fueled power plants. Moreover, owing to the intermittent nature of the available renewable energy, developing and implementing innovative, low-cost, large-scale energy storage systems is essential to increase the share of renewable energy in the energy mix. Carnot batteries are emerging as an effective alternative for high-capacity energy storage, in most cases with no geographical limitations. This seminar highlights research efforts in the development, modelling, and optimization of sustainable thermal energy systems. First, the development and modelling of heat pump systems for the decarbonization of building space heating and cooling in cold climates will be discussed. Next, research on the enhancement, modelling, and optimization of concentrating solar thermal systems will be presented. Finally, the recent research in the modelling of Carnot batteries for thermal energy storage will be discussed.

Dr. Aggrey Mwesigye is currently an Assistant Professor of Renewable and Sustainable Energy at the University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Previously, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota Duluth and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in High-Performance Computing for Sustainable Energy at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), Canada. He earned his PhD in Mechanical Engineering (Thermofluids) from the University of Pretoria.

His research applies fundamental thermal science principles, the entropy generation minimization method and multi-objective optimization to design, model and optimize sustainable thermal energy systems. His current research is in solar thermal systems (concentrating systems, solar thermal cracking of natural gas and solar-driven heating and cooling systems), geothermal energy (geo-exchange systems, deep geothermal for direct use, geothermal for district heating with high-temperature heat pumps), alternative refrigeration systems, and thermal energy storage (Carnot batteries, compressed heat energy storage systems, phase change thermal energy storage) among others.

He is the author and co-author of more than 28 research papers in high-impact journals and over 40 peer-reviewed papers in international conference proceedings. He received the best paper and highly cited review paper awards from Applied Energy- Elsevier in 2013 and 2020, respectively. He has also received teaching excellence awards for his work in project-based learning.