pre011 - Fundamentals of Renewable Energy (Complete module description)

After successful completion of the module students should be able to:

-        identify their competence and incompetence with respect to the study of renewable energies

-        describe basic knowledge from a wide field of disciplines as required for renewable energies

-        perform laboratory measurements in a university environment according to scientific standards

-        analyse and interpret measurement results using relevant and widely used software tools

-        work and communicate their results with international and interdisciplinary partners

-        critically discuss basic principles of current mainstream economics

-        distinguish between the classical, neo-classical and selected heterodox economics and relate those approaches to the historic economic development
-        distinguish and evaluate the peculiarities of selected energy markets and its regulatory frameworks

The module is designed to give students a solid foundation to successfully start the MSc programme. The content from the field of Physics, Mathematics as well as Electrical and Mechanical Engineering aims to provide a homogenous foundation for the study of renewable energies via lectures and laboratory experiments. With an introduction into Socio-economics students will learn about the principles of mainstream economics, the peculiarities of energy markets and will get insight into some selected heterodox economic perspectives.

Primers (Lecture & Exercises ‑ 60 h workload)

-        Mathematics

-        Programming

-        Modelling

-        Electronic Power Systems

-        Semiconductor Physics

-        Material Characterization

-        Thermodynamics

-        Fluid Dynamics

Laboratories (Theoretical‑practical Seminar ‑ 120 h workload)

-        Introductory Laboratory

-        Interaction Light and Matter

-        Heat Transfer

-        Fluid Dynamics

-        Storage Technologies

Introduction to Socio-economics (Lecture & Seminar ‑ 90 h workload)

-        Scarcity, market

-        Supply and demand

-        Equilibrium

-        Elasticity

-        Incentives, free market, role of the state

-        Peculiarities of energy markets and corresponding regulatory frameworks

-        Limitations of mainstream economics
-        Selected heterodox economics