Program Overview

Renewable Energy Engineering

The Renewable Energy Engineering program is designed to teach engineering fundamentals of various renewable energy sources, including wind energy, solar energy, geothermal energy, and biomass energy. The program will discuss examples of real-world applications and include quantitative analysis.

Course Description

This course will cover the engineering fundamentals of renewable energy sources, including:

• Wind energy
• Solar energy
• Geothermal energy
• Biomass energy The course material will include discussion and quantitative analysis. The class will be divided into teams to execute two mini projects:
  • The first project will involve the design, analysis, manufacturing, and testing of a scale-model wind turbine.
  • The second project will involve the analysis of a concentrated solar power (CSP) thermal power plant.

Prerequisites

• 33106 or 33141 or equivalent

Textbook

• Energy Science, John Andrews and Nick Jelley

Grading

• Homework (45%)
• Projects (30%)
• Exam 1 (10%)
• Exam 2 (15%)

Tentative Syllabus Outline

The course will cover the following topics:

• Introduction, Background, and Need for Renewable Energy
• Wind Energy Engineering
• Solar Energy Engineering
• Biomass Energy Utilization
• Geothermal Energy

Introduction, Background, and Need for Renewable Energy

• Week 1: World energy needs, reliance on fossil fuels, CO2 and its greenhouse effect, toxic emissions from fossil fuel combustion and their impact on human health, economics of conventional vs renewable energy technologies, role of public policy in renewable energy promotion

Wind Energy Engineering

• Week 2: History of wind energy conversion, worldwide wind energy potential, various types of wind turbines, calculation of energy contained in the wind, wind farms, connection to the grid, economical and environmental aspects, fluid mechanics of wind turbines, Bernoulli's principle
• Week 3: Review of airfoil theory, forces acting on wind a turbine blade, analysis of energy conversion on a wind turbine blade, Betz Law, power coefficient and efficiency, tip speed ratio, turbine control and operation
• Week 4: Project 1 - Learn how to use software XFLR5 to design a 2-D airfoil, optimize an airfoil shape that will be used to build a 3-blade wind turbine, learn how to use software QBlade to analyze a wind turbine
• Week 5: Project 1 continued - Develop and optimize a 3-blade wind turbine using QBlade, create 3D CAD model of the turbine blade, submit CAD model for 3D printing

Solar Energy Engineering

• Week 6: Worldwide solar energy potential, solar spectrum, principles and physics of photovoltaic (PV) cells, materials and configurations of PV cells, improvements and roadblocks in PV cell technology, economics and outlook of PV technology
• Week 7: Stand-alone PV systems, grid-connected PV systems, optical principles of concentrated solar thermal power (CSP), solar to thermal energy conversion, energy flow in solar thermal power plant, reflector designs, receiver designs

Biomass Energy Utilization

• Week 12: Biomass potential, photosynthesis and crop yields, biomass production and use, biomass combustion and emissions, calculation of heating value, conversion of biomass to heat and electricity, various methods of biomass gasification
• Week 13: Renewable carbon-based transportation fuels, discussion of technical pathways for renewable fuel generation, corn-based ethanol production and utilization, biodiesel production and utilization, efficiency of fuel generation

Geothermal Energy

• Week 14: Thermal structure of the Earth, energy budget of the Earth, geothermal energy resources, technical and economical aspects, direct use of geothermal energy for heating
• Week 15: Geothermal power plant, heat extraction from an aquifer, enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), efficiency, outlook for geothermal power

Lecture and Office Hours

• Lecture: Tuesday and Thursday, 3:00 - 4:20 pm, PH 126A
• Instructor Office Hours: Tuesdays, 2:00 - 3:00 PM, Scaife Hall 319
• TA Office Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:30 - 7:30 PM, SH 220

Exams

• Midterm Exam: March 5
• Final Exam: May 02