Welcome to the Energy Systems and Storage Lab

This is the website for the research group of Dr Edward Barbour, Associate Professor of Energy Systems and Storage at the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage at the University of Birmingham, also part of the Birmingham Energy Institute. Dr Barbour's research group works in several energy-related areas. These include the development of novel thermomechanical energy storage technologies like Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage (ACAES), developing methods for widespread heat decarbonisation (such as heat pumps and thermal energy storage) and whole systems energy modelling for efficiently planning the transition to a highly decarbonised energy system in the UK.

Dr Barbour is also a member of the the School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Birmingham.

If you are interested in more about our research, then please visit our research page

Latest News

The group has moved to the University of Birmingham

I am pleased to announce that I have taken a new position at the University of Birmingham and therefore the research group will be moving from Loughborough University and CREST. At UoB I will be a member of the Birmingham Centre for Energy Storage and the Birmingham Energy Institute, and a faculty member in the School or Chemical Enguineering.

Two new EPSRC grants awarded to Dr Barbour in 2022.

I am pleased to announce that I have two new grants which have started in 2022 and are now ongoing in 2023. These are SAVECAES - Sustainable, Affordable and Viable Compressed Air Energy Storage – a £1.1 million award from the EPSRC - and GasNetNew - The role of the gas network in a future decarbonised UK, another EPSRC grant with a value of £1.3 million.

New papers on Compressed Air Energy Storage

Two new papers in iScience and Joule seek to understand why Compressed Air Energy Storage hs not yet been widely used for large scale energy storage despite being frequently mentioned as a promising option.

Exploiting mobile phone data for accurate occupancy in urban energy models

Our recent paper, published in Nature Communications, explores how mobile phones traces can generate accurate city-scale occupancy models for urban energy planning.