The University of Strathclyde is to establish a new innovation hub within the Advanced Manufacturing Innovation District Scotland.
This will support the journey to deliver a sustainable net-zero economy by accelerating the development and deployment of technology supporting decarbonisation.
An agreement has been signed with Rolls-Royce which will see Strathclyde develop the new facility within the company’s Inchinnan plant to enable the University to scale-up its wide-ranging collaboration activities with industry partners across sectors such as heat, transport and power electronics.
The new Renfrewshire facility will see Strathclyde locate equipment and capabilities from PNDC, an integrated development, manufacture and test facility that will help to accelerate and de-risk large-scale decarbonisation technologies and products.
Government objectives
With the advent of affordable renewable energy, emissions relating to power generation have significantly decreased since the COP25 Paris Agreement, however they are harder to abate in the heat and transport sectors. In 2020, transport was the largest carbon dioxide emitting sector in the UK, accounting for 30% of CO2 emissions.
The decarbonisation of heat is another particular challenge, with 29 million UK homes which need to be upgraded to low carbon heating systems by 2050.
The facility will be closely aligned with the nearby National Manufacturing Institute Scotland (NMIS) in supporting the delivery of government objectives embodied within policies such as: the UK’s Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution; the UK’s and Scottish Government’s Innovation Strategies; the Scottish Government’s world-first hydrogen action plan and hydrogen policy statement; and Scotland’s Draft Energy Strategy which the previous first minister launched earlier this year at PNDC.
