SDG 7: Affordable and clean energy

Computers already use around 10% of the total amount of energy generated in the world, so improving their efficiency can lead to huge savings. For the same computation, a computers uses 80 kilowatts while the human brain uses less than 20 watts.

Researchers from the fields of mathematics, physics, materials science and artificial intelligence are working together at the CogniGron research centre to develop low-energy computers. Their research focuses on developing new materials that can process information in a way that resembles the working of nerve cells in the human brain, which will ultimately need less energy.

There is already a working prototype of this neuromorphic computer close to Zuidhorn railway station.

Macromolecular chemist Qi Chen from the University of Groningen uses a problematic weed to build a tiny, self-powered sensor.

She studies foam-like materials and found the plant (soft rush, Juncus effusus) by accident, noticing the foamy structure inside the stem. The insides of many aquatic or wetland plants consist of such an open structure, called aerenchyma. ‘The plant needs this open structure to breathe,’ Chen says, ‘because with their roots in a wet environment, they need to take oxygen from the air and transport it through the stem.’

As it turns out, this material is a great alternative resource for natural plant-based foams, but there is another application: it can be used to create a tiny nanogenerator. Such a nanogenerator can help make the current trend of ever smaller wearable devices more sustainable, replacing batteries that ultimately end up in electronic waste.

At Professor Maria Antonietta Loi's research group they study new materials for, amongst others, solar cells. Ideally these materials can make solar cells thinner, more flexible, easier to produce and more efficient.

Much progress has been made using several approaches. For example, the efficiency of organic solar cells was increased to over 17 percent, using tin oxide as a conductive layer. This class of solar cells may make an important extra contribution to the energy transition because of their mechanical properties and their transparency. ‘We expect that they will be used in a totally different way than silicon panels,’ says Loi.

Albatrosses, with their enormous wingspan, have a strange way of landing that looks more like crashing. They let their long wings ‘oscillate’ so that they can still safely reach the ground despite their low speed. By mimicking the wings of the albatross, Professor Eize Stamhuis developed wind turbine blades that produce 25 to 35 percent more energy in low wind speeds. An alliance with two pioneering entrepreneurs led to the Albatrozz start-up.

The EU has identified the Northern part of the Netherlands as Hydrogen Valley. The University of Groningen is partner (and academic lead) in the HEAVENN project. This is a large-scale programme of demo projects bringing together core elements: production, distribution, storage and local end-use of hydrogen (H2) into a fully-integrated and functioning “H2 valley” (H2V), that can serve as a blueprint for replication across Europe and beyond.

The main goal is to make use of green hydrogen across the entire value chain, while developing replicable business models for wide-scale commercial deployment of H2 across the entire regional energy system.

There are often earthquakes in the Groningen area, as a result of sandstone compaction after gas removal. Dr. Johannes Miocic of the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute (ESRIG) is studying how these earthquakes are formed, based on the characteristics of the sandstone reservoirs.

The compaction process depends on the type of sand grains, their shape, the space between the grains, and minerals cementing the grains together – in other words, the petrography. Miocic will use microscopical and chemical analyses as well as compaction experiments to study these aspects in Groningen sandstone samples. This will allow computer predictions of the petrography of the whole area. The results will help forecast where the sandstone is likely to compact in the future and thus where subsidence could occur.

Dr. Johannes Miocic has been awarded a DeepNL grant by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to conduct his research.

Ocean Grazer is a spinoff company from the University of Groningen. Since 2014, several researchers at the Faculty of Science and Engineering have been working on different technologies in storing energy and increasing efficiency of offshore wind parks, for example by using wave energy.

The Ocean Grazer is now working on bringing the Ocean Battery to the market. It is designed to lower the cost of an offshore power grid, by storing energy produced by wind turbines and floating solar farms at sea. The goal is to reduce local peak loads and match supply and demand. The system is based on hydro dam technology and uses clean water as the energy carrier.

The BatteryNL consortium aims to develop the next generation of batteries within eight years - that are safer, environmentally benign and have higher performances. Professor Moniek Tromp, of the Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials (ZIAM), is one of the partners in the consortium, that consists of several universities and companies.

BatteryNL wants to create batteries based on a better understanding of material interfaces. These batteries will have higher energy densities and have a longer life-cycle – all of which are crucial for a society based on sustainable energy sources and necessary to stabilize the future power grid.