Great Moments: IESVic

IESVic: a cleaner, greener path for energy

In just over two decades, the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems (IESVic) has helped UVic become a global leader in clean fuels and energy. Dr. David Scott, the institute’s founding director, expressed the urgent need for energy-systems research at IESVic’s founding in 1989. “There are two issues that will profoundly shape the next half century,” he predicted. “First, there’s the prospect that man-made climatic instabilities— primarily caused by emissions from today’s energy systems — will irreversibly disrupt the orderly development of civilization. . . . Secondly, there’s the need to provide energy services — essential to the development of civilization — from energy systems that reduce, and later eliminate, climatic risk.”

Today, working with public and private sector partners, IESVic faculty and graduate students in a broad spectrum of academic fields are pursuing integrated, feasible solutions to these two issues. In 2008, Science Watch placed UVic fifth worldwide in citation impact in the fields of energy and fuels, due in large part to the research at IESVic.

International collaboration has also grown: in 2010, the institute partnered with 10 top universities and institutes in China to found the Canada-China Clean Energy Research and Training Collaboration. And in 2011 a bi-national PhD program in Renewable Energy was initiated with the University of Oldenburg in Germany.