Summary of the impact

This case study describes the national and international impact of research undertaken by Professor Chao, as part of an EU funded Framework 7 project, Digital Environment Home Energy Management Systems (DEHEMS). The project has improved existing household energy monitoring, tackling the issues of global warming and CO₂ emission reduction in the domestic sector. The research has directly contributed to the development of a product called EnergyHive, subsequently marketed by Small to Medium-sized Enterprise (SME) Hildebrand Ltd, who was the industrial partner in the DEHEMS consortium. The research has delivered the following:

• Economic impact — as a direct result of the research project, Hildebrand Ltd has diversified and entered into an entirely new market;
• Impact on the environment — home owners, local authorities and energy companies have installed EnergyHive meters which have shown significant energy and carbon dioxide reductions.

Beneficiaries of the research and the subsequent impact include: a commercial business, domestic energy consumers, UK and international energy companies and local authorities.

Summary of the impact

Researchers at Queen Mary have applied mathematical modelling techniques to understand how and when problems may arise in complex man-made infrastructure networks including electricity, gas, global shipping and haulage networks. Many of these networks have points of vulnerability where a local issue such as an earthquake, a terrorist attack or even a simple engineering problem can bring down widespread areas of the network. Our research and the associated modelling techniques have impacted on organisations including the UK Treasury Office and the European Commission's Joint Research Centres at both Petten and Ispra, where it has been used to inform UK and European policy guidelines and legislation for infrastructure projects.

Summary of the impact

Mobile technologies and in particular mobile applications have become key drivers of the economy in many countries especially those that lack established communications infrastructures. Since 2003, the research team led by Professor Al-Begain has created both significant infrastructure and know-how that became the base for the creation of the £6.4million Centre of Excellence in Mobile Applications and Services (CEMAS) that is providing research and development to SMEs in Wales to increase their competitiveness. In the first three years since its inception 28 projects have been completed and 66 companies have received services.

Summary of the impact

Deployment of robust diagnostic techniques developed at the University of Strathclyde has improved the analysis of reactor core data and has directly supported the Safety Case for continued and extended operation of the Advanced Gas-cooled Reactor nuclear power stations in the UK. The new diagnostic techniques have been used on a daily basis since 16/5/2008 (BETA) and 5/3/2009 (IMAPS) in four power stations: 1) providing improved support and confirmation of the manual assessment of reactor core data by graphite engineers; 2) informing and advising power station personnel making strategic decisions on channels requiring inspection during statutory outages, and 3) providing evidence and increased confidence for the monitoring stage of station Safety Cases.

Summary of the impact

Research at the University of Strathclyde between 2003 and 2008 directly produced the following impacts from 2008 onwards: 10 wind farms (17 MW aggregate capacity) connected to the Orkney power network from 2009 to 2013 with accompanying economic and environmental benefits; Orkney power network reinforcement deferral saving of £30M from 2009 with repeat deployments of Active Network Management (ANM) technology in other UK power networks; spin-out company formed in September 2008 with total revenues to date of £6.1M, equity investment totalling £3.5M and 35 FTE jobs created; provision of new power system options for long term network plans impacting the 2013 investment decisions in distribution network companies; contribution to the emerging Smart Grid business sector in the UK and overseas from 2008.

Summary of the impact

Lancaster University's pioneering research on Quality-of-Service (QoS) architecture has led to significant impact on the development of TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) — the digital radio standard used by emergency and public safety services globally. The route to impact was via UK projects on Mobile and Emergency Multimedia. It involved the transfer of QoS technology and know-how to HW Communications Ltd (HWC), a Lancaster-based SME. HWC became instrumental in developing the outcomes of our collaboration in TETRA's Multimedia Exchange Layer (MEX) standard and its specification for TETRA II (or TETRA Enhanced Data Services, TEDS) — a new version of TETRA that enables multimedia data services. MEX was adopted as a new clause in the TETRA II release in 2010. The impact is that vendors of TETRA equipment manufactured after 2010 can implement MEX in their products, thereby leveraging Lancaster's pioneering QoS research to enable applications to obtain the best possible level of service in a standardised way — which is absolutely crucial for the public-safety and related applications for which TETRA is being used.

Summary of the impact

The Power Systems research team at Imperial made pivotal contributions in the design of power transmission networks, the equipment within these networks, and non-conventional electricity systems. Since 2008, the impact of their research has been to:

I1) influence government policies by contributing to House of Common Select Committee (2010);

I2) support the Fundamental Review of Supply Quality and Security Standards;

I3) assist National Grid in defining new investment affecting £3bn worth of network assets now approved by the regulator (2013);

I4) provide tools to develop the first offshore networks design standards in 2008, saving an estimated £500m by 2013 to date and a projected overall saving of £1-2bn by 2020;

I5) advance Alstom's design concept for next generation HVDC converter stations for offshore wind connection from TRL 1 in 2009 to TRL 4 in 2013 supported by 3 new patents;

I6) enable UK Power Network to plan network investment of £1.18bn and make savings of £130m (2013) through applying new technologies and demand response;

I7) facilitate a scheme for off-grid energy kiosks for electrification in rural Africa yielding social gains and a business opportunity.

Summary of the impact

The research improves digital data archives by embedding computation into the storage controllers that maintain the integrity of the data within the archive. This opens up a number of possibilities:

• Data analysis can be automated and incorporated into the archiving process;
• The approach improves the archiving of all types of digital objects, from television broadcasts to genomes;
• The approach can be applied to distributed data and to datasets that are too big for traditional approaches.

This has impact on three different classes of beneficiary:

• Providers of national data infrastructure in the UK and US, who are incorporating Cheshire 3 into national data repositories;
• Data Users, such as Astra Zeneca, RAI, Sanger Institute, who are using Cheshire 3 to extract valuable information from their data;
• Equipment vendors, such as NetApp, Xerox and Bellerophon Mobile, who are developing commercial systems that will use Cheshire 3.

Summary of the impact

Essex research has investigated a range of switching techniques to enable efficient routing in optical networks. This research informed the development of the iVX8000 system, the world's first `carrier class' converged switch and transport solution, launched in May 2011 by the network equipment manufacturer Intune Networks Ltd. The development, launch and field implementation of the iVX8000 system have underpinned a period of sustained growth and success for Intune. The company has enhanced its position within the photonics transmission sector and attracted €15M of venture capital and collaborative research funding since 2011.

Summary of the impact

Research at the University of Southampton, into the engineering of complex socio-technical systems, has underpinned new technologies in the area of intelligent energy management, and made Professors Nick Jennings and Alex Rogers trusted sources of advice for energy policymakers, key stakeholders and industrial researchers. The work has had an economic, environmental and societal impact: it has shaped R&D strategies of leading British companies like BAE Systems and Secure Meters; the launch of iPhone apps and websites have supplied private and industrial users with personalised data regarding their energy use, resulting in cost savings and reductions in carbon emissions; it has enabled charities to provide energy-saving advice to households directly; and has won an international technology showcase competition leading to a spinout and commercialisation of research.