Naked Energy Announces £17m Of New Equity
Congratulations to Naked Energy, who have recently announced £17m of new equity in Series B…
Primary School Pupils Explain Active Building Principles in Animations
In June, SPECIFIC researchers went to Mount Stuart Primary School in Cardiff Bay for the…
Can Roll-to-Roll Manufacture Provide Industrial Leap for Perovskite Solar Cells?
In the last year, two papers have reported game-changing advancements in roll-to-roll manufacture of perovskite…
Primary School Pupils Visit the Active Office to Learn about Energy
A wonderful group of year 6 pupils from Mount Stuart Primary School, Cardiff Bay, visited…
Successful Project Changes Pupils’ Perceptions of Engineering
Researcher Dr Sarah-Jane Potts leads a project called Reimagine Energy, which aims to open young…
An Economic Analysis of the Active Office’s Integrated PV and Batteries
In a new paper, Dr Guangling Zhao and colleagues undertook an economic analysis of the…
Q&A Blog: Renewable Technologies at Tan Y Lan Fach Holiday Cottages
The Tan Y Lan Fach holiday cottages in rural Carmarthenshire were early adopters of solar…
Barcelona: A Return to Research Collaborations in Person
Collaborations over the last few years have all taken place online. So it was with…
Vlog: How SPECIFIC is Helping an Adaptive Surf School to Run More Sustainably
https://youtu.be/eEst-ha0Z0U Surfability UK is a Community Interest Company that provides surfing lessons and experiences for…
Switch-Connect: A Collaborative Network For a Net Zero Wales
A Year of Lockdown Data at The Active Office
The Active Office recently turned 3 years old, and for its birthday it asked for…
Guest Blog: Celebrating the Origins & Future of Active Buildings
The Active Building Centre owes a lot to SPECIFIC. It proved that Active Buildings could…
Vlog: The Evolution of Data Monitoring at the Active Buildings
In this vlog, SPECIFIC’s Technology Director, Justin Searle, discusses how the energy monitoring systems and…
The Evolution of the Active Building Demonstrator Programme
The Active PODThe Solar Heat Energy DemonstratorThe Active ClassroomThe Active Office Purpose When we moved…
Promoting Change in the Construction Industry
It’s no secret that the UK construction industry has suffered from a poor reputation over…
BIPVco: from SPECIFIC Research to Successful Solar SME
BIPVco is a successful SME specialising in building-integrated photovoltaics. It was founded in 2015, underpinned…
A Safer, Greener Way to Make Solar Cells
https://youtu.be/GoPzHXRLoS0 SPECIFIC / SUNRISE PhD student Carys Worsley tells us about her first paper as…
Using Renewable Energy for Milk Pasteurisation in Rwanda
A Goat Nutrition (GN) Ltd Still to be used in Malawi for producing high value…
VLOG: Collaborating with Business at Research Level
In this Q&A vlog, we speak to SPECIFIC’s Innovation & Engagement Fellow, Silvia Villarroya-Lidon, about…
Vlog: Researchers discover harmful pollutants within disposable face masks
https://youtu.be/ymIP_G2W1bQ It’s been one year since lockdown began. Our lives have all changed in so…
ATIP Vlog: Working with Industry to Develop Photovoltaic Solutions
https://youtu.be/QN18dedDfGU In the last of our photovoltaic research vlog series, we find out about the…
Sêr Solar Vlog – Fostering Excellent Photovoltaic Research Capacity in Wales
https://youtu.be/9onIErk6Nbo The £7million Sêr Solar project was launched in 2013, led by Professor James Durrant…
SPECIFIC’s Perovskite Journey Vlog with Prof Trystan Watson
https://youtu.be/U64fTT_ds9U Perovskite solar cells are a relatively new breakthrough in photovoltaics, bursting onto the scene…
Supporting projects with the Active Buildings Toolkit
In November 2020, we launched the first version of our Active Building Toolkit. The main…
The Future Of Home Heating
“We talk about our successes, but nobody wants to admit when there’s been a problem….
Celebrating SPECIFIC’s EV Champion, Nigel Morris.
Due to Government legislation and a ‘greener’ way of thinking amongst consumers, the electric car…
Perovskite Solar Cells and the Internet of Things
SPECIFIC researcher Suzanne Thomas is working on integrating perovskite solar cells, which are cheap and…
Energy Data & Smart Controls At The Active Office
Cost Effective, Smart Monitoring of Residential & Industrial Properties
We have recently completed a collaborative project with Safehouse Technology – whose smart sensors not…
Heat Week – All Wrapped up!
This week we threw a spotlight on one of the toughest challenges society faces in…
Collaborative Thermal Energy Storage Research Project Towards Achieving Net Zero
FLEXISApp has just announced funding for MESH (Mobile Energy Storage as Heat), a partnership project…
Keeping warm without gas needs technical solutions and more…
Sharon Bishop, SPECIFIC’s communications manager and heating novice, calls for a joined-up collaborative approach. Many…
Heat Week is here! What’s it all about?
We’re throwing a spotlight on one of the toughest challenges society faces in reducing carbon…
Sustainability Award for Swansea University Labs
Swansea University has achieved the Laboratory Efficiency Assessment Framework (LEAF) sustainability award for many of…
How SPECIFIC works with business: A Q&A vlog w/ Chris Bailey
In our first ever vlog, we chat to one of SPECIFIC’s Business Development Managers about…
Back to School Safely: 12 Local Schools Protected by Swansea University Hand Sanitiser
Q&A w/ Hybrid Solar Start-up, Naked Energy
Naked Energy is a British design, innovation and engineering business with a global outlook, redefining…
“Build, Build, Build” vs. Build Back Better
In June this year, the UK Prime Minister delivered a “Build, Build, Build” speech that…
Launching an EPSRC programme grant during lockdown
The Perils and Pitfalls of Perovskite XPS
Here at SPECIFIC, our PV team are looking at scaling up perovskite solar cells (PSCs)….
Turning Waste Heat into Electricity
Dr Matthew Burton is part of our Thermoelectrics Group, working on energy capture research to…
Using Electric Vehicles to ‘Flatten the Curve’
The team at SPECIFIC have long been advocates of using electric vehicles (EVs), from adopting…
The Circular Economy and Photovoltaics
With the rapid rise of renewable energy technologies, there’s a risk of solving one environmental…
New Fabrication Methods Improve Perovskite Solar Cell Efficiency
Our most recent printed photovoltaics paper, which was published in Sustainable Energy and Fuels, looks at using…
Active Versus Passive Buildings
At SPECIFIC, we are often asked: “What differentiates an Active Building from other “green” buildings?”…
Novel scribing method for carbon perovskite solar modules
Our most recent paper, which was published in Energies, looks at the optimisation of scribes…
Scale-up to Star Trek: The Future of Industrial Coatings
Our Industrial Coatings group works on lab-scale testing all the way through to larger scale…
Trystan Watson publishes 100th paper!
Our very own Professor Trystan Watson – member of SPECIFIC’s Management Team, our Photovoltaics Research…
Solar Heat Storage: Eliminating Gas Heating
This series of articles is a partnership between SPECIFIC, SUNRISE and the Active Building Centre. Our projects work…
Building Collaborations in Mexico
Blog by Simone Meroni In 2017, our PV group, alongside CINVESTAV, was awarded a Newton Fund grant to…
The Active Classroom: still providing insights and performing well…
This series of articles is a partnership between SPECIFIC, SUNRISE and the Active Building Centre….
Flexibility Hits the Headlines
[Written by Peter Bullock, Evergreen Smart Power] National Grid’s need to keep the electricity network…
CONGRATS TO JENNY BAKER ON HER EPSRC FELLOWSHIP!
Congratulations to Jenny Baker on being awarded a £1.3M, 5-year Early Career Research Fellowship by…
Strengthening Research Linked Between UK and China
This Summer, we hosted the first ever UK-China Workshop on Organic and Perovskites Solar cells…
The Active Office: One Year On…
A Q&A with SPECIFIC’s Technology Director, Dr Justin Searle, on how the Active Office has…
Getting the Best out of Solar Technologies: a Q&A on the Latest Project…
A ‘Q&A’ with Chris Weirman on the latest solar PV and solar thermal project at…
‘Active Homes’ are Key to a Decentralised Energy Future
[Written by Gill Kelleher, Policy and Engagement Manager at SPECIFIC] David Attenborough’s poignant message at…
A Year of Sunshine with the PV Team
[written by Silvia Villarroya-Lidon, Ser Solar Fellow – Industrial Engagement] As 2018 came to an…
Assessing the Viability of Producing PV instead of Textiles
[By Adrian Walters, IP & Project Manager for SUNRISE] Background: In 2017 the photovoltaic groups…
Active Office: Occupied & Generating Electricity AND Heat via PV-T
(Written by Joanna Clarke, Buildings Integration Manager at SPECIFIC) The Active Office is now occupied…
RSC Photophysics & Photochemistry Group Meeting 2018
[Written by Catherine Suenne De Castro from SPECIFIC’s Research Team] The RSC Photophysics and Photochemistry Group…
Electric Vehicles & Local Energy Systems
[Written by Nigel Morris, Electric Vehicle Integration Manager] The amazing achievements of the Active Classroom…
Installing the Largest Electrostatic Jet Printer in Europe
An Introduction to Offsite Construction (By Wernick Group)
A lot of very impressive technology has gone into the new Active Office at Swansea…
Outreach at The Great Science Share
The Great Science Share is a national campaign to engage with young people in sharing…
Congratulations to Matthew Davies, Matt Carnie and Trystan Watson
Inspiring the Younger Generation through Biodiversity, Journalism and more!
Examining the stability of emerging PV technologies in Barcelona
SEPV (Stability of Emerging Photovoltaics) is a project that was started by Professor Monica Lira-Cantu…
Blogging the Active Office Build!
Congrats to the PV group! 10 years and going strong…
By Justin Searle, SPECIFIC The starting Trio of Worsley (Dave), Watson (Trystan) and Philip (Bruce)…