RMIT Energy CARE Group

Mission

To be an internationally recognised centre of excellence in tertiary and community education, research and development, and consultancy in sustainable energy, emphasising energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies that contribute towards ecologically sustainable development nationally and globally.

How RMIT Energy CARE Group Can Help You

  • Research, development, and demonstration projects relating to energy conservation and renewable energy systems

  • Expert consultancy services on applications of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies

  • Advice on manufacturing and marketing energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies

Academic Training
  • Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) degrees that include specialist units on energy conservation and renewables

  • Master and PhD degrees by research specialising

  • Master of Engineering (Sustainable Energy) program by coursework

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RMIT Energy Care Group Facilities

The 2000 m2 sustainable energy R&D park is located at RMIT’s Bundoora East campus, Melbourne.

  • 60 m2 passively designed renewable energy lab
  • 500 watt PEM fuel cell system
  • 250 watt PEM electroliser with various hydrogen storages
  • Cabinet with full safety provisions for hydrogen energy experimentation
  • 2 solar ponds
  • 2 evaporation ponds
  • 1.5 kilowatt aero generator
  • Solar water heating systems
  • 3 kilowatt photovoltaic panels
  • Weather station including wind speed, solar radiation and humidity

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Solar Energy and Salinity 2004 - 2007

The Solar Desalination Project was a major RMIT Energy CARE Group and R&D project supported by the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality through the Victorian Department of Sustainability and Environment. Follow up work on the technologies developed during this project is continuing.

Solar Thermal Desalination and Power Production

Research into solar thermal desalination by the Energy CARE Group is tackling the major problems of fresh water shortage and rising salinity by developing technologies and systems, powered by a sustainable energy source, that can desalinate salty water, whether saline ground water or sea water.

The Group is developing and evaluating the most promising desalination technologies suitable for use with solar thermal technologies such as evacuated tubular collectors and solar ponds. The use of only renewable energy inputs overcomes one of the major hurdles facing conventional desalination technologies powered by fossil fuels: namely that fresh water is extracted from salt water at the expense of increased greenhouse gas emissions.

Fresh water together with concentrated salt solution for production of commercial salt would be valuable products from solar thermal desalination systems operated in conjunction with salinity mitigation schemes in inland Australia that could improve their overall economic viability.

Solar Ponds and Salinity Management

RMIT Energy CARE Group, in collaboration with two industry partners, has successfully developed a solar pond system as an innovative, cost-effective method of capturing and storing solar energy for a range of applications.

The Solar Pond Project (2000 – 2002) made possible through a grant of $550,000 under the Renewable Energy Commercialisation Program from the Australian Greenhouse Office, has led the way in demonstrating how we can reduce regional Australia’s reliance on fossil fuels while boosting economic prosperity.

The project used a 3000 square metre solar pond located at the Pyramid Hill Salt’s facility in northern Victoria to capture and store solar energy using pond water that can reach up to 80°C.

Pyramid Salt uses the pond’s heat not only in its commercial salt production but also for aquaculture, specifically producing brine shrimps for stock feed. Research is now underway to generate electricity using the heat stored in the solar pond.

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Renewable Energy Systems for Remote Power Supply

The Energy CARE Group is a member of the Hydrogen Cluster under CSIRO’s Flagship Collaboration Fund and is working in partnership with CSIRO and the University of Queensland on hydrogen production using PEM electrolysers.

Solar and Wind Hydrogen Systems

The production of hydrogen from renewable energy sources has strong sustainability advantages compared to coal, natural gas or nuclear energy because of zero greenhouse emissions, and long-term availability and security of supply. Hydrogen can be used for all purposes requiring energy, from a transport fuel in land, air and sea vehicles, to stationary electricity generation in fuel cells, and combustion as a source of high-temperature heat.

The Energy CARE Group is designing, developing and evaluating hydrogen systems for supplying the energy requirements of communities and industrial applications remote from large-scale centralised electricity and other energy supply networks (e.g. mining and energy projects, remote towns/communities, islands, outback stations).

The technological emphasis is on solar photovoltaic and wind as renewable energy technologies, the use of Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) electrolysers for the production of hydrogen from water, and PEM fuel cells to convert hydrogen into electricity and heat.

Experimental systems utilising the 2.4kW and 1.8kW photovoltaic arrays, and 1.5kW and 0.4kW aero generators at the Renewable Energy Park on RMIT’s Bundoora East campus, and PEM electrolysers and fuel cells in the kW range, are being designed, constructed and evaluated using a range of computer system simulation models

Small-scale Hydroelectric Systems

The low head waters of Australia’s streams and rivers offer an exciting opportunity for generating clean and inexpensive power and one yet to be fully explored.

Use of these low headwater sources can help decentralise power supply and provide power to remote areas.

The cost of commercially available low headwater turbines is considerably higher per kilowatt output and more research is required to lower these costs.

The Energy CARE Group’s main focus is to develop a low-cost low-head hydro turbine. It is also committed to developing a simple manufacturing technology for such turbines: a hydro machine that can be assembled in local workshops for decentralised power needs.

RMIT’s Bundoora East campus has a 1.5kW turbine-testing unit, which is used for experimental analysis for different turbine designs. In the future, it is planned to increase the test capacity to a 3kW turbine testing system.

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Energy Efficiency and Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction

In its joint venture with Fujikura Ltd, Japan, RMIT Energy CARE Group is at the forefront of heat pipe R&D and has established a thermal test facility that can access the new and improved designs for cooling computers developed by the group.

RMIT-NORTHLink Greenhouse Challenge Support Program

Each year since 2004 the RMIT Energy CARE Group, in collaboration with the northern region of Melbourne’s business network NORTHLink, has set up student projects with northern region firms that have joined the Australian Government’s Greenhouse Challenge program to investigate and implement greenhouse gas emission reduction initiatives. This program has received funding support from the Australian Greenhouse Office.

The opportunity to undertake emission-reduction projects in real world industry and commercial situations is made available both to final-year undergraduate Bachelor of Engineering students, and postgraduate students undertaking our new Master of Engineering (Sustainable energy) program.

Very impressive and substantial savings in both energy use and fuel bills have been identified by the students for the participating firms.

Waste Heat Recovery

Some 25% of the waste heat produced by Australian industry could be recovered and reused, thus cutting fuel bills, reducing fossil fuel usage and greenhouse gas emissions, and improving air quality. The Energy CARE Group is a world leader on research and development into heat pipe heat exchangers as a highly-efficient and cost-effective technology for recovering such ‘waste’ heat.

A project to develop and commercialise heat pipe heat exchangers for industrial waste heat recovery was undertaken with the support of the Energy Research and Development Corporation, in collaboration with Buttercup Bakeries and Crossle McKee Pty Ltd 1994-7. Work is under way on improved versions capable of being installed in a wide variety of industrial applications, and on encouraging local manufacture of this technology.

The Energy CARE Group won a National Energy Award in 1996, and a Victorian Business Roundtable Award and RMIT Research and Innovation Award in 1997 for its work on commercialising heat pipe heat exchangers.

Heat Pipe Turbine

Currently there are no low-cost heat engines on the market for converting low grade heat from geothermal or solar sources or waste heat from industry into mechanical power and hence electricity. The heat pipe turbine concept developed at RMIT by the Energy CARE Group, working in collaboration with Fujikura Ltd, Tokyo, can perform this task using the superior heat transfer characteristics of heat pipes. The concept is very promising and the group is at the forefront of research in this area.

A prototype thermosyphon Rankine engine is being developed with a power output up to 2kW. Current work is centering on the development of prototypes with much higher power outputs and demonstrating their commercial use in geothermal energy extraction with solar ponds and for waste heat recovery.

Cooling Computers using Heat Pipes

Thermal control is a general need of electronic equipment. The development of high-performance compact computers has resulted in a considerable rise in the power dissipation requirements of their microprocessors. At present the rate of heat release by the central processing unit (CPU) of a desktop computer is 80 to 130 W and that of a notebook computer 25 to 50W.

The RMIT Energy CARE Group, in partnership with Fujikura Ltd. Japan, is exploring various thermal designs based on both two-phase (liquid and vapour) and single-phase (liquid) heat transfer for the thermal control of high-density microprocessors. In the domain of two-phase technology, a number of different heat pipes employing wicks for liquid transport are being investigated.

Enhanced single-phase cooling systems using micro-channels or sintered micro-porous media are also being studied. The prospects for developing cooling systems based on these concepts for the next generation of computer systems that will have multiple heat sources are also being considered.

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Study with the Energy CARE Group

The following undergraduate and postgraduate degrees are available in the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical)

The Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical) is a four-year undergraduate course covering all aspects of mechanical engineering. It provides the opportunity to gain a sound understanding of energy conversion and transfer, and study certain aspects of energy conversation and utilisation of renewables in more detail.

Master of Engineering

The Master of Engineering (Sustainable Energy) by coursework program provides an exciting new pathway for engineers and scientists, or those with alternative acceptable qualifications and industry experience, to gain a Master qualification in the burgeoning specialist area of ‘sustainable energy’. a one-and-a-half years full time course, or three years part-time, the program is structured to progress through Graduate Certificate, Diploma to Master level.

Master of Engineering (Conservation or Renewable Technology) by Research degrees are available as two years full-time or four years part-time. A member of the Group supervises participants. With the Group’s close contacts with industry it is often possible to undertake a project involving a working relationship with one or more industrial firms.

PhD

The School offers Doctor of Philosophy degrees in engineering as three years full time or six years part time. There is the opportunity to focus on a research question relating to energy conservation or renewable energy under the supervision of a member of the Energy CARE Group. A Project involving collaboration with an industrial firm or governmental organisation is often available.

Members of the Group are currently supervising seven PhD students.

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The Energy CARE Group at RMIT University

  • Professor AliakbarAkbarzadeh, Group Leader, an internationally recognised leader in heat pipe and solar ponds research (70 published research papers, 2 books)

  • Dr John Andrews, Senior Lecturer, and program leader MEng (Sustainable Energy), a theoretical physicist and technology assessment and transfer specialist with a strong interest in sustainability (21 research papers, 15 reports, 3 books)

  • Dr Andrea Bunting, Lecturer, Program Coordinator MEng (Sustainable Energy), a wind energy specialist (7 research papers, 1 book co-author)

  • Chris Dixon, Senior Lecturer, specialist in heat transfer and heat pumps (11 research papers, 2 research reports)

  • Dr Randeep Singh, Research Fellow, specialist in computer cooling by heat pipes (11 research papers)

  • The Group has access to seven technical support persons and specialist renewable energy and thermodynamics laboratories.

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Further Information

RMIT University  
Energy Conservation and Renewable Energy Group
Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering
Bundoora East Campus
Cnr Plenty Road and McKimmies Lane
Bundoora, Vic 3083
PO Box 71, Bundoora 3083
Telephone (03) 9925 6022
Facsimile (03) 9925 6108

Professor Aliakbar Akbarzadeh
Dr John Andrews

Studying with Energy CARE Group and application forms - phone (03) 9925 6022.

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