Research
Professor Yu's research is focused on thermal energy technologies and their fundamental thermodynamic, heat transfer, fluid-dynamic problems. He is particularly interested in developing novel technologies for sustainable heating, cooling, and power generation, including but not limited to the topics as follows:
- Heat Pumps
- Refrigeration Systems
- Thermal Energy Storage
- District Heating & Cooling
- Organic Rankine Cycle
- Thermal Energy Digital Twins
- Machine Learning for Thermal Systems
Research grants:
Project Principal Investigator (Project PI)
[1] EPSRC (Critical Mass) “Sustainable Open-loop Large-scale Interseasonal Thermochemical Heat Storage (SOLIS)” (UKRI3935), £2.52M total value (£857k share), Aug 2026–Jan 2030.
[2] EPSRC “Demonstration of the Next Generation CO2 Heat Pump based on the Flexible Heat Pump Cycle (FlexiCO2-HP)” (UKRI3154), £663k total value (£404k share), Oct 2025–Sep 2027.
[3] The Royal Society (Industrial Fellowship) “Industrial Fellowship, Flexible Heat Pump Technology – from Concept to Applications” (IF\R1\231053), £180k total value (£180k share), Jan 2024–Dec 2027.
[4] EPSRC “An Adsorption-Compression Cold Thermal Energy Storage System (ACCESS)” (EP/W027593/1), £1.02M total value (£507k share), Jan 2023–Jan 2025.
[5] EPSRC “Flexible Air Source Heat pump for domestic heating decarbonisation (FASHION)” (EP/V042033/1), £1.15M total value (£733k share), Sep 2021–Aug 2024.
[6] EPSRC “Geothermally sourced combined power and freshwater generation for eastern Africa (Combi-Gen)” (EP/P028829/1), £1.34M total value (£969k share), Apr 2017–Jul 2021.
[7] EPSRC “Thermally Driven Heat Pump Based on an Integrated Thermodynamic Cycle for Low Carbon Domestic Heating (Therma-Pump)” (EP/N020472/1), £713k total value (£505k share), Oct 2016–Dec 2019.
[8] EPSRC “Dynamic Organic Rankine Cycle for Recovering Industrial Waste Heat” (EP/N005228/1), £98k total value (£98k share), Jan 2016–Dec 2016.
[9] ETP/SSE “Studentship: Reducing the performance gap of behind the meter renewables using digital twin technology”, £102k total value (£102k share), May 2023–Jun 2027.
[10] ETP/SPEN “Studentship: Mitigate the impacts of heat electrification on grid with flexible heating system”, £98k total value (£98k share), Oct 2022–Mar 2026.
[11] ETP/SPEN “Studentship: Modelling of 5th Generation District Heating Networks, PhD studentship” , £90k total value (£90k share), May 2021–Jun 2024.
[12] SPEN “PhD Studentship: Impact of electrification of heat on the grid”, £68k total value, Jan 2019–Sep 2023.
[13] ETP “Novel Heat Pump System for Electric Retrofitted Commercial Vehicles”, £9.3k total value, Apr 2002–Mar 2023.
[14] EPSRC IAA “Flexible heat pump”, £10k total value, Jan 2022–Jun 2023.
[15] OfGem (Strategic Innovation Fund) “Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF): Flexible Heat”, £24k total value, Feb 2022–Apr 2022.
[16] ETP/SPEN “Studentship: Modelling and Optimisation of Integrated Urban Energy Systems for both Heating and Power”, £90k total value, Feb 2018–Jan 2022.
[17] EPSRC IAA “Waste heat driven cooling system”, £40k total value, Oct 2020–Sep 2021.
[18] UKRI “COA Allocation”, £90k total value, Jan 2021–Sep 2021.
[19] British Council-NSFC “Researcher Links Workshop Grant 2018, China-UK workshop on low-carbon heating and cooling technologies” (2018-RLWK10-10298), £40k total value (£20k share), Jan 2019–Dec 2019.
[20] Royal Society “Study on the integrated vehicle IC engine-based ORC system” (IE150866), £12.5k total value, Mar 2016–Mar 2018.
[21] EPSRC IAA “Development of a Novel Expander Technology” (Via EP/K503903/1), £10k total value, Jan 2017–Mar 2017.
[22] Royal Society “Investigating zeotropic mixtures as working fluids for high efficiency Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plants” (RG130051), £14.7k total value, Nov 2013–Oct 2014.
[23] Chinese Academy of Sciences (Visiting Fellowship) “Visiting Fellowship – Thermoacoustic energy systems”, ¥130k total value, Sep 2004–Sep 2005.
Institution Principal Investigator / Project Co-Investigator
[24] EPSRC (Critical Mass Programme) “Granular Solid Particle Long Duration Energy Storage System (GPStore)” (UKRI3934), £2.52M total value (£361k share), Apr 2026–Apr 2029. (Role: UoL PI & WP2 Leader)
[25] EPSRC “Prosperity Partnership, Energy System Digital Twin (ESIGN)” (EP/X025322/1), £4.34M from EPSRC and £4M from SPEN (£985k share), Aug 2023–Aug 2027. (Role: UoL PI & WP3 Leader)
[26] EPSRC (Programme Grant) “Programme Grant: Decentralised water technologies” (EP/V030515/1), £5.99M total value (£606k share), Mar 2021–Dec 2026. (Role: UoL PI)
[27] Department of Energy Security and Net Zero “Heat Pump Ready Programme: The Flexible Heat Pump” , £773k total value (£187k share), Apr 2024–Mar 2025. (Role: UoL PI)
[28] EPSRC “GREEN-ICEs: Generation of REfrigerated ENergy Integrated with Cold Energy storage” (EP/T022701/1), £1.20M total value (£401k share), Sep 2020–Aug 2024. (Role: UoG PI)
[29] European Commission “Collaborative development of renewable/thermally driven and storage-integrated cooling technologies” (01007976), €892k total value (£64k share), Oct 2021–Sep 2026. (Role: UoL PI)
[30] Royal Academy of Engineering (Industrial Fellowship) “Industrial Fellowship: Smart and Integrated Energy Systems for Heat and Electricity” (IF2122\182), £84k total value, Sep 2021–Sep 2023. (Role: UoG Host)
[31] IUK/EPSRC “An ORC power plant integrated with thermal energy storage to utilise renewable heat sources for distributed heating and power” (EP/R003122/1), £2.00M total value (£390k share), May 2017–Apr 2019. (Role: UoG PI)
[32] OfGem (Strategic Innovation Fund) “Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF): Heat Balance”, £27k total value, Feb 2022–Apr 2022. (Role: Co-I)
[33] Royal Academy of Engineering “Point-of-use heat exchanger system for bio-filtration and storage of portable water”, £75k total value, Mar 2019–Ref 2022. (Role: Co-I)
[34] European Commission “Demonstration of soft stimulation treatments of geothermal reservoirs (DESTRESS)” (No 691728), €10.7M total value, (UoG share: £189K) Mar 2016–Feb 2020. (Role: Co-I)
[35] IUK “Developing and testing a new Energy from Waste Gasification Feedstock” (TS/P006914/19), £639k total value (UoG: £125k), 2017–2019. (Role: Co-I)
[36] EPSRC “Real time control of gasifiers to increase tolerance to biomass variety and reduce emissions” (EP/M01343X/1), £1.0M total value (UoG: £427K), Jan 2015–Dec 2017. (Role: Co-I)
[37] European Commission “Low-Carbon After-Life for Coal Mines (LoCAL) – Ground-Source Heat-Pumps”, £189k total value, Jul 2014–Jun 2017. (Role: Co-I)
[38] Royal Academy of Engineering “Innovative energy neutral membrane system for metallurgy wastewater treatment and heavy metal recovery” (NRCP/1415/55), £17.8k total value, Mar 2015–Nov 2016. (Role: Co-I)
Research grants
Sustainable Open-loop Large-scale Interseasonal Thermochemical Heat Storage (SOLIS)
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
August 2026 - January 2030
Demonstration of the Next Generation CO2 Heat Pump based on the Flexible Heat Pump Cycle
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
October 2025 - September 2027
Flexible Heat Pump Technology – from Concept to Applications
ROYAL SOCIETY
January 2024 - December 2027
Collaborative development of renewable/thermally driven and storage-integrated cooling technologies’ — ‘CO-COOL
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
January 2024 - September 2026
Flexible Heat Pump
DEPARTMENT FOR ENERGY SECURITY AND NET ZERO
April 2024 - September 2025
ENSIGN: ENergy System dIGital twiN
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2024 - August 2027
Decentralised water technologies
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2024 - December 2026
Flexible Air Source Heat pump for domestic heating decarbonisation (FASHION)
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
April 2024 - August 2025
An Adsorption-Compression Cold Thermal Energy Storage System
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
January 2024 - January 2026
Granular Solid Particle Long Duration Energy Storage System (P2Store)
ENGINEERING & PHYSICAL SCIENCES RESEARCH COUNCIL
April 2026 - March 2029