We ensure we achieve maximum impact by engaging collaboratively with partners and stakeholders from government, energy industry and local communities to address key energy challenges. Below you can see some of the many projects that are producing that step change needed to achieve a net-zero world.

Aura is the offshore wind energy cluster for the Humber region. This includes Durham University and our strategic partner Ørsted, the biggest wind developer in the world, along with Siemens Gamesa. Aura aims to act as a catalyst for collaboration and innovation to support the sector’s growth. Since its inception in 2015 Aura has created an Innovation Centre and the Aura Centre for Doctoral Training where Durham University are leading 15 PhD projects in offshore wind energy and the environment.

The University is committed to saving energy both by encouraging and supporting behavioural change and by carrying out physical modifications to University buildings and their systems. Reducing and saving energy is also part of our Environmental Sustainability Vision, Policy and Strategy and Action Plan with detailed Key Performance Indicators and our ethical investment policy; establishing restrictions on some types of investment such as in fossil fuel extractive companies.

As the availability of fossil fuels declines and traditional energy structures become obsolete, it is essential we develop new energy sources that can also help counter the threat of climate change, as well as building smarter, flexible and integrated energy systems. Explore our projects such as supporting the Church of England in their ambitious aim of achieving net-zero carbon by 2030 through a new partnership with Durham Energy Institute (DEI).

Investigating the process through which energy governance is being conducted at a variety of scales, with a particular interest in issues of energy security. Researchers at DEI are undertaking research into various facets of the geopolitics of energy, investigating the processes through which energy governance is being conducted at a variety of scales and how global political relationships influence the production, distribution, supply and pricing of energy.