Current Research Projects
End of Life Decisions for Wind Farms: An Opportunity for Climate Action and for Energy Communities
Wind Value is a 4-year project which started on 1st March 2022 and is based in the Environmental Research Institute of University College Cork. It is funded by the Irish Research Council under the Pathway Programme. The project will put a value on existing wind farms as they approach their end-of-life, helping owners to decide between re-powering, life extension and decommissioning. This will also help local communities decide whether they should buy part or all of the wind farm.
The Environmental and Socio-Economic Impact of a New Wind Turbine Design
The X-Rotor Wind Turbine Project is funded by Horizon 2020 and is based in the Cleaner Production Promotion Unit of University College Cork Ireland . The X-Rotor Project is led by colleagues in the University of Strathclyde, Scotland. The consortium includes the Technical University Delft Netherlands, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, General Electric Renewables Spain and Fundacion Cener Spain
Circular Economy Business Models Supporting
Wind Turbine Blade Repurposing / Recycling / Recovery
The Re-Wind Network research group (see video and another video) is funded by Science Foundation Ireland, InvestNI/Department for the Economy, and The US National Science Foundation. The project is based in Georgia Tech USA, University College Cork Ireland , Munster Technological University and Queen’s University Belfast Northern Ireland. This research has produced a paper, End-of-Life Alternatives for Wind Turbine Blades: Sustainability Indices Based on the UN Sustainable Development Goals published in Resources, Conservation and Recycling, a high impact journal.
Wind Turbine Blade Life Cycle and Value Chain
IEA Wind Task 45 Work Package 3 Leader funded by SEAI with colleagues across Europe, and the USA, in both industry and research institutions.
Previous Research Projects
Carbon Upcycle was funded by the Irish Research Council and was carried out in Dublin City University Business School and School of Chemical Sciences. The project looked at methods to use carbon dioxide to make feedstock compounds to store energy. The project has already produced a paper A real options based decision support tool for R&D investment: Application to CO2 recycling technology in the European Journal of Operational Research (ABS 4).
Carbon Lock-in was funded by the Irish Environmental Protection Agency and based in the Environmental Research Institute, of UCC. It looked at the risks to the Irish Economy from decarbonisation. This included stranded asset risk and the reduction to government income from decarbonisation. My work in this project contributed to Quantifying stranding risk for fossil fuel assets and implications for renewable energy investment: A review of the literature which was published in the high impact journal, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews.
Data Breaches looked at the effect of data breach announcements on firm value and was part of the work of the Irish Centre for Cloud Computing and Commerce IC4, (now The Irish Institute of Digital Business based in DCU Business School) funded by the Irish Industrial Development Authority and Enterprise Ireland. My work in this project contributed to two publications, Social media and stock price reaction to data breach announcements: Evidence from US listed companies and The effect of data breach announcements beyond the stock price: Empirical evidence on market activity published in Research in International Business and Finance (ABS 2), and International Review of Financial Analysis (ABS 3).
The Effect of Sentiment in Professionally Traded Markets: Evidence from Oil and Emissions Futures, my PhD topic funded by a Daniel O’Hare Scholarship in DCU Business School. This examined how sentiment indices based market data and Tweets was associated with the behaviour of Brent and WTI oil, and EU emission allowance futures prices. This produced two papers Influences from the European Parliament on the EU Emissions Prices and Sentiment in the Oil Markets, published in Energy Policy (ABS 2) and International Review of Financial Analysis (ABS 3).