Energy Research Centre

The Energy Research Centre aims to engage in research, education and outreach in the fields of energy and environment. Our research is conducted in four main areas: bioenergy, renewable resources, energy efficient technologies and energy and society. The Centre brings together over 100 academic staff and researchers, from NUI Galway's Colleges of Science; Engineering and Informatics; Arts, Social Sciences and Celtic Studies; Law; and Commerce, along with many key national and international collaborators.

 

Bioenergy Research Group

Microbial fermentations and digestion of organic feedstocks
Biocatalytic fuel cells
Combustion chemistry

Energy Efficient Technologies Group

Energy efficient wastewater treatment
Power conversion technologies
Energy and buildings
Energy storage
Efficient materials technology
Solar capture

Renewable Resources Group

The use of high-resolution bathymetric data obtained from the INSS and INFORMAR programmes as an input into massively parallelised hydrodynamic modelling code to infer those locations in the offshore zone which would be optimum for tidal energy.

Energy and Society Group

A central objective of ERC is to make a positive contribution to education and training and to raising general awareness of the nature of the research and its benefits. Opportunities for the integration of well-established areas of research on the socio-economic dimension, societal concerns and behaviour change, will be the focus of the Energy and Society Group.

As part of the Environmental Research Institute, the Energy Research Centre has access to the following facilities:

GIS Facility

  • GIS/Remote Sensing (RS) training suite, containing nine computers running Windows 2000 with Pentium 4 2.2 GHz processors and 1 GB of RAM.
  • GIS lab containing eight computers with Pentium 4 2.2GHz processors and 1 GB of RAM.
    • Two Fujitsu-Siemens Primergy TX servers for hosting GIS/Imagery Datasets/Geoprocessing and for GIS-related web projects.
    • One server hosts the datasets and other information files,
    • The second server hosts web applications.
    • Both servers have 2 Xeon 3.06GHz processors, 2GB of RAM, and a RAID disk array of 546GB with an online backup.
  • The ECI training suite and GIS Lab are wireless enabled.
  • Internet GIS Application Server, ArcIMS for publishing geographic information through the internet/intranet.

Carron Field Research Station

  • The Carron Field Research Station was set up by NUI Galway as a base for groups involved in research on the Burren.
  • Dormitory accommodation for groups of up to 20
  • Separate accommodation for up to four supervisory staff
  • Cooking and dining areas
  • Meeting rooms
  • Fully serviced teaching laboratory

Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station

The Atmospheric Research Station Mace Head, Carna, County Galway offers westerly exposure to the North Atlantic ocean (clean sector, 180 degrees through west to 300 degrees) and the opportunity to study atmospheric composition under Northern Hemispheric background conditions, as well as European continental emissions when the winds favour transport from that region.

ECI/Orbsen Building

The New ECI building was completed in September 2003 and is situated on the North East side of the NUI Galway campus near the River Corrib.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Energy Research Centre - Life cycle energy modelling and information management in buildings Please visit our jobs section for a complete list of current vacancies.

Bioenergy Research Group

Microbial fermentations and digestion of organic feedstocks
Biocatalytic fuel cells
Combustion chemistry

Energy Efficient Technologies Group

Energy efficient wastewater treatment
Power conversion technologies
Energy and buildings
Energy storage
Efficient materials technology
Solar capture

Renewable Resources Group

The use of high-resolution bathymetric data obtained from the INSS and INFORMAR programmes as an input into massively parallelised hydrodynamic modelling code to infer those locations in the offshore zone which would be optimum for tidal energy.

Energy and Society Group

A central objective of ERC is to make a positive contribution to education and training and to raising general awareness of the nature of the research and its benefits. Opportunities for the integration of well-established areas of research on the socio-economic dimension, societal concerns and behaviour change, will be the focus of the Energy and Society Group.

As part of the Environmental Research Institute, the Energy Research Centre has access to the following facilities:

GIS Facility

  • GIS/Remote Sensing (RS) training suite, containing nine computers running Windows 2000 with Pentium 4 2.2 GHz processors and 1 GB of RAM.
  • GIS lab containing eight computers with Pentium 4 2.2GHz processors and 1 GB of RAM.
    • Two Fujitsu-Siemens Primergy TX servers for hosting GIS/Imagery Datasets/Geoprocessing and for GIS-related web projects.
    • One server hosts the datasets and other information files,
    • The second server hosts web applications.
    • Both servers have 2 Xeon 3.06GHz processors, 2GB of RAM, and a RAID disk array of 546GB with an online backup.
  • The ECI training suite and GIS Lab are wireless enabled.
  • Internet GIS Application Server, ArcIMS for publishing geographic information through the internet/intranet.

Carron Field Research Station

  • The Carron Field Research Station was set up by NUI Galway as a base for groups involved in research on the Burren.
  • Dormitory accommodation for groups of up to 20
  • Separate accommodation for up to four supervisory staff
  • Cooking and dining areas
  • Meeting rooms
  • Fully serviced teaching laboratory

Mace Head Atmospheric Research Station

The Atmospheric Research Station Mace Head, Carna, County Galway offers westerly exposure to the North Atlantic ocean (clean sector, 180 degrees through west to 300 degrees) and the opportunity to study atmospheric composition under Northern Hemispheric background conditions, as well as European continental emissions when the winds favour transport from that region.

ECI/Orbsen Building

The New ECI building was completed in September 2003 and is situated on the North East side of the NUI Galway campus near the River Corrib.

Postdoctoral Researcher

Energy Research Centre - Life cycle energy modelling and information management in buildings Please visit our jobs section for a complete list of current vacancies.