UK researchers are working on a £5.25 million project to develop energy efficient heating and cooling technologies to help cut the nation’s energy needs and reduce emissions.

Funded by the UK Research Councils’ Energy Programme, the Interdisciplinary centre for Storage, Transformation and Upgrading of Thermal Energy (i-STUTE) aims to reduce energy usage across a wide range of technologies, including domestic heating, thermal energy storage and industrial heat pumps.

The centre also aims to help the nation achieve its target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 as more than 40% of fossil fuels are currently used for low temperature heating and 16% of electricity for cooling.

Professor Bob Critoph, Director of i-STUTE said: “The technologies we use to heat and cool the buildings we live and work in will have to change if we are to meet our environmental targets. This is not simply a major engineering challenge, a great deal of work also needs to be done to make sure this technology is not only accessible and appealing but will be readily adopted by households and businesses. i-STUTE aims to tackle these two challenges by integrating engineering, behavioural economics and policy research.”

The University of Warwick, London South Bank University, the University of Ulster and Loughborough University will be working on the project.