Course structure
What you will study
On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:
1. Describe and differentiate between the principles underlying the technologies for the exploitation of selected renewable energy resources.
2. Identify and critically analyse data to assess the scale of renewable energy resources, in the UK and in a wider context, using data from appropriate sources.
3. Identify and use appropriate techniques, and review their limitations, for assessing the feasibility of renewable energy resources.
4. Assess the environmental advantages and disadvantages of exploiting selected renewable energy resources.
5. Use appropriate software to assess the requirements and predict the performance of a renewable energy system.
Participants completing this module will enhance their knowledge, understanding and application of:
- Geothermal Energy and Solar Thermal: Active and passive systems. Water and air-heating collectors. Hottel-Whiller-Bliss equation and Concentrating collectors.
- Solar Photovoltaic: Types of cells and principles of operation. Connection to circuits and system efficiency.
- Energy from Waste and Biomass: Size and quality of resources; landfill gas, incineration, pyrolysis. refuse-derived fuel, anaerobic digestion.
- Wind: Types of turbine, Principles of operation. Resource estimation. Hydro: Types of turbine. Principles of operation. Small and large scale systems. Tidal barrages.
- Integrated (Hybrid) Systems: Combined exploitation of more than one resource to meet the demand for energy.
- Software tools: Use of specialist software tools, and their limitations, to help design and analyse renewable energy systems.
- Environmental Issues: Environmental impacts of different resources.