MSc Renewable and Sustainable Energy Technologies
1 Year Full-Time | September Start

Academic skills when studying away from your home institution can differ due to cultural and language differences in teaching and assessment practices. This module is designed to support your transition in the use and practice of technical language and subject specific skills around assessments and teaching provision in your chosen subject area in the Department of Architecture and Built Environment. The overall aim of this module is to develop your abilities to read and study effectively for academic purposes; to develop your skills in analysing and using source material in seminars and academic writing and to develop your use and application of language and communications skills to a higher level.

The topics you will cover on the module include:

• Understanding assignment briefs and exam questions.
• Developing academic writing skills, including citation, paraphrasing, and summarising.
• Practising ‘critical reading’ and ‘critical writing’.
• Planning and structuring academic assignments (e.g. essays, reports and presentations).
• Avoiding academic misconduct and gaining credit by using academic sources and referencing effectively.
• Listening skills for lectures.
• Speaking in seminar presentations.
• Giving discipline-related academic presentations, experiencing peer observation, and receiving formative feedback.
• Speed reading techniques.
• Discussing ethical issues in research, and analysing results.
• Describing bias and limitations of research.
• Developing self-reflection skills.

This module will evolve your understanding of and develop specialist knowledge in the subject area of heat and mass transfer systems. It aims to appraise practical methods in solving complex problems in the subject field using analytical, computational, and experimental approaches. Open-ended problems with no obvious and immediate solution, in topics such as viscous flow, heat transfer and turbulence will be considered and judged in the context of their industrial application. You will evaluate the characterisation and specification of complex systems and emerging technologies in this field in the context of global developments in this area of mechanical engineering.

This module explores the fundamentals of sustainable and ethical development for engineering practitioners, considering the role and responsibility of the engineer within society. The module will consider the elements of sustainable development as they relate to decision making in engineering, for example, consideration of legislation, economics, energy, materials, environment, and society. The challenges engineering activities present society are examined, and ethical solutions for the future of our planet are sought through the use of various techniques and tools such as the triple bottom line, stakeholder analysis, the circular economy, carbon footprint, material and energy supply chains and risk. A rational argument for sustainable solutions will be presented using both qualitative and quantitative data sources and tools using a wide range of published literature and from students’ own experience.

This module relates the world of business and management to engineering design. You will develop a business model that exploits an open-ended concept for the start of a small business based around the development of a product. You will learn the importance of creative collaboration with your peers to develop these concepts and apply knowledge of engineering management principles within the context of commercial enterprise. You will explore and evaluate the use of risk management tools and techniques to mitigate the effects of uncertainty associated with entrepreneurial activities and start-up businesses.

You will learn to work both independently, and in a group environment, to develop knowledge, skills, and awareness essential to complex-problem-solving research and innovation in relevant engineering subjects. You will learn through the practice of identification of need, research planning including research idea generation and proposal development. You will learn to plan and carry research responsibly, assessing risks and constraints analysis in legislation, security, economics, energy, materials, equipment, health safety and environmental impact. You will also learn to make appropriate choices when executing your research investigation, for example, developing essential skills in qualitative and quantitative research methods that can be employed to achieve your designed aims and objectives.

You will learn to work independently, perform systems thinking, and bring together your specialist knowledge and skills within a research and development project. You will work with the guidance of a tutor to direct your learning and develop your abilities in areas such as project planning and management, detailed design of the proposed method, prototype fabrication or virtual system modelling and critical evaluation and identification of further developments. You will be provided with the opportunity to demonstrate to potential future employers the breadth and depth of your ability by not only using your specialist abilities, but also through the demonstration of your planning, organisational and independent working skills. You will be expected to incorporate unfamiliar knowledge as well as the wider social and environmental considerations of the engineering profession.

This module will evolve your understanding of and develop specialist knowledge in the subject area of technologies for the utilisation of renewable and sustainable energy sources for heat and power production using heat engines and other types of converters, such as: Solar, biomass, hydrogen and waste thermal energy resources, internal and external combustion engines, solar thermal energy, geothermal and hydrogen technology. You will explore energy conversion system theory and their application through practical classes where you will also be able to develop skills important to your future engineering practice. Open-ended problems with no obvious and immediate solution, in topics such as viscous flow, heat transfer and turbulence will be considered and judged in the context of their industrial application. You will evaluate the characterisation and specification of complex systems and emerging technologies in this field in the context of global developments in this area of renewable and sustainable energy engineering.

You will learn about the theory and application of the technology of wind, photovoltaic and hybrid renewable energy conversion systems. These technologies will be introduced such that their fundamental principles allow system design to be defined and performance optimised. Topics covered will be selected such that both stand-alone and hybrid systems may be specified, for example:
• Renewable resources, their characteristics and stochastic modelling
• Wind turbines: components and performance measures, conceptual design, structural loads, blade and tower structural design considerations, operation and control
• Aerodynamics of wind turbines: blade element momentum theory, blade aerodynamic design
• Photovoltaic: conversion theory and technology, sizing and design considerations
• Storage systems: power and cost modelling
• Hybrid systems: power, cost and reliability/availability analyses and system architecture design for various configurations including wind, PV, battery, diesel and fuel cell