Renewable Energy Systems 1 - 2024 entry

Renewable Energy Systems One is an introductory module for understanding the sciences, engineering and deployment of ‘renewable energy’.

It begins with scientific definition of ‘energy’, and a definition of ‘renewable energy’.

The module sets-out briefly the historical overview of the energy landscape, before focusing onto the seven main sources of renewable energy. Solar, wind, wave, hydro, biomass, tidal and geothermal energy.

For each of the seven sources of renewable energy, the scale and magnitude of the resource are considered, and the variety of technologies available to harvest and employ that energy resource are examined at an introductory level.

The module is suitable for anyone who has a good basic understanding of general physics and maths.

An introductory course examining concepts of renewable energy; its sources and deployment.

This module will deliver and summatively assess the Engineering Council’s Accreditation of Higher Education Programme (AHEP-4) Learning Outcomes that are indicated in brackets in the ILO section below.

- An introduction to the module. Defining energy, renewable energy and the seven available sources of renewable energy.

- How ‘power’ differs from energy, and an appreciation of the scale of power

- An explanation of tasks to be achieved in the module – including formative and summative assignments.

- A brief introduction to the growth of human energy use within the industrial era, including the growth of the fossil fuels, nuclear energy, the electrical grid, environmental problems.

- Solar energy. Magnitude of solar resource. Solar thermal energy, passive and active solar heating, solar concentration. Solar photovoltaics, basic PV science, PV technologies and electrical characteristics.

- Wind energy. Source of wind. Scale of wind. Basic aerodynamics, lift and drag. Fundamental wind power equation. Introduction to wind turbines, rival design concepts, commercial deployment.

- Wave energy. Source of waves. Scale of wave resource. Fundamental wave power equations; onshore and off-shore wave energy extraction systems.

- Hydro energy. Magnitude of hydro resource. Hydro-electricity and the hydro power-equations. Variety of hydro-turbines, large and small scale systems, pumped storage.

- Biomass energy. Sources of biomass, photosynthesis. Magnitude of resource. Varieties of biomass fuel. Combustion, gasification, pyrolysis. Fermentation, anaerobic digestion. Esterification and bio-diesel.

- Tidal energy. Origin and magnitude. Tidal-range versus tidal-stream. Technologies to harness tidal range and stream; the pros and cons and environmental factors.

- Geothermal energy. Source of geothermal energy. Magnitude of resource. Classical aquifer geothermal energy. Hot-dry-rock or ‘enhanced’ geothermal energy. Geothermal ground-source heat pumps.

- Laboratory introduction to energy conversion and energy storage. Light-energy converted to electrical energy, to hydrogen chemical energy for storage, back to electrical energy. 

- Calculation of efficiency of a small PV panel and of a PEM (proton-exchange-membrane) electrolyser and PEM fuel-cell.

- Communicating renewable energy – via short written report, and a short oral presentation, on a renewable-energy subject of personal choice.

 

If a student is referred or deferred, the failed / non-completed component(s) will be re-assessed at the same weighting as the original assessment.

 

Deferral- if you have been deferred for any assessment, you will be expected to complete relevant deferred assessments as determined by the Mitigation Committee. The mark given for reassessment taken because of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

 

Referral –if you have failed the module overall 9i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to undertake reassessments as described in the table above for any of the original assessments that you failed. The mark given for a reassessment taken because of referral will be capped at 40%

 

Lecture materials – notes and pre-recorded mini-lectures.

Links to chosen texts, journal articles, web pages, expert institutions, media programmes and videos to support and extensively explore the subject material.