TSBE researcher wins award at international APEC conference

(14 June 2013) - TSBE EngD research engineer Sam Mudie attended the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on low carbon towns and energy storage held in China, presenting her own paper “Electricity Use in the Commercial Kitchen” and winning an award.

China is often portrayed in a negative light in environmental and energy related circles, but despite rampant coal production and polluted cities they are making great strides in the development of efficient buildings and contributing significant funds in the development of renewable energy infrastructure across the world.

TSBE researcher Sam Mudie had the privilege to attend the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit on low carbon towns and energy storage held in the model low carbon city of Changsha, Hunan Province on 25-26th May. She attended as a session chair, workshop organiser and peer reviewer as well as presenting her own paper “Electricity Use in the Commercial Kitchen”.

The event was incredibly high profile, appearing on Chinese national TV and attended by representatives from various national energy departments as well as leaders and specialists from a large number of universities and research organisations from across the globe. Session topics included energy consumption, ventilation, heat pumps and energy simulations.

“It was a fantastic experience for me to network with influential people from organisations such as APEC and the US Department of Energy as well hear relevant research findings from such a wide range of academic organisations. I am very grateful to the ESPRC, TSBE and Mitchells & Butlers for affording me such a worthwhile opportunity.”

Electricity use in commercial kitchens is an exceedingly wasteful area of global energy use; the paper details electricity consumption from a range of UK pubs for the first time in the modern academic research.

“It was great to have the chance for my paper to be heard on the other side of the world, particularly in a nation where cooking is widely regarded as the most outstanding in the world!”

Sam received an award for best paper in the energy consumption session of the conference. The paper has been accepted for publishing in the Oxford Journal of Low Carbon Technologies.

S.Mudie@pgr.reading.ac.uk