Researchers from the Qatar Environment and Energy Research Institute (Qeeri), one of Hamad Bin Khalifa University’s three national research institutes, gathered last week to present their research progress at Qeeri’s second quarterly portfolio review workshop.
The three-day workshop highlighted key areas of scientific discovery by Qeeri, within its recently consolidated six research portfolios – Water Security, Photovoltaics, Smart Grid, Energy Storage, Energy Efficiency and Value Added Products, and Air Quality and Climate Change.
Dr Marwan Khraisheh, acting executive director at Qeeri, said: “Our research agenda is committed to meeting the needs of Qatar, in alignment with the country’s energy and water security grand challenges. We consolidated our research activities in an effort to optimise our core competencies that led to the development of six well-defined and integrated research portfolios.”  
The review workshop showcased several key achievements of Qeeri’s different research portfolios.
Within the Smart Grid Portfolio, Qeeri has been working closely with several stakeholders including Kahramaa, Qatar Electricity and Water Company, Qatar Petroleum, and Qatar Meteorological Department to help the nation achieve its renewable energy targets, and increase the effectiveness and safety of its power grid structure.
Researchers have developed several power system solutions that enable the integration of solar photovoltaic (PV) systems into the power distribution system in a reliable and efficient manner and made tremendous progress in creation of tools that map and forecast solar resources to support the development of PV systems at residential and utility scales. Significant advancements have been made in establishing a database of electricity demand profiles to promote the design of measures aimed at empowering consumers to reduce or shift their electricity usage during peak periods in response to financial incentives.
In the field of Solar PV, Qeeri has developed unique capabilities and know-how in the region that enable it to design and produce solar cells of high performance for the desert environment.
This has enabled Qeeri researchers to join international forums and committees to come up with new standards and procedures to effectively test and assess PV panels under desert environment.
With a unique outdoor solar testing facility and a team of dedicated scientists working on developing solar PV technologies, Qeeri has three filed patents and an inventions disclosure on their novel materials and solar cell design in the recent months.
Qeeri has also achieved significant milestones in its energy storage portfolio. The Institute has successfully developed systems that evaluate the operating conditions of a large-sized battery for grid support in the solar test facility. This battery is based on the high energy density lithium ion battery technology.
Modified carbon material, which improves the electrochemical performance of redox flow battery system, were also investigated by the team, and promising results were obtained with nitrogen doping of carbon materials.
Qeeri, under its Energy Efficiency Research Portfolio, is partnering with Kahramaa for a two-year research collaboration to improve the energy efficiency of district cooling systems by 10-20%, thus reducing energy costs and minimising adverse impact on the environment.
In addition, Qeeri has recently filed a provisional patent application on a new “smart” energy efficient thermostat with the proof of concept already showing potential.