Sustainable Energy: Sources and Storage

It has been widely acknowledged that fossil fuels which are the main source of energy for the world today are highly unsustainable and directly related to air pollution, land and water degradation and climate change.  To counter this, the use of low-carbon and renewable energy sources is already growing. Renewable energy depends on diverse sources like wind, solar, geothermal, , hydro, and biomass, while the widespread use of nuclear technology has done much to displace fossil fuels.  Moreover, this must be associated with applying different techniques to derive better energy efficiency from existing systems and to store the generated energy and/or any captured carbon dioxide in different forms.  Storage systems include fuel cells, supercapacitors, and batteries, as well as schemes to prevent CO2 from combustion reaching the atmosphere. 

The main aim of the Sustainable Energy: Sources & Storage module (ENGG11053) is to outline the fundamentals and the up-to-date technologies associated mainly with Biomass and Energy storage systems and compare them to more long-established but less sustainable systems.  Also sources such as wind, solar, bio-energy, nuclear and hydro energy will be included. As mentioned before an overview of the storage systems that are popularly linked to the renewable energy resources and different types of fuel cells systems, supercapacitors and batteries will be studied. 

Evaluation techniques such as Energy Returned over Energy Invested and Carbon Emission Pinch Analysis (CEPA) are used to target efforts in replacing energy generation and for carbon capture and storage (CCS). 

Different applications and case studies will be investigated and strength and weakness of each case will be clarified.  The cases studies include diverse geographical and economic situations.  Discussion regarding common technical and non-technical barriers and issues limiting the wide spread use and dissemination of renewable energy will also be covered.  The limits of available technology and of the potential of new and emerging technology will be discussed. 

At the end of this module the student will be able to:

• Outline the fundamentals associated with both current energy sources and storage systems and their likely, sustainable replacements. 
• Critically evaluate all of the studied energy technologies and storage systems, comparing them to each other in terms of sustainability, capacity, durability and cost.
• Evaluate the limits of available technology and of the potential of new and emerging technologies in different geographical and socioeconomic environments.
• Evaluate the technical and non-technical barriers that are limiting the wide spread of renewable energy.

This is an SCQF Level 11 module and upon successful completion, participants will be awarded 20 credits.

 

Delivery 

Online with face-to-face learning on Paisley campus (subject to change):

• Lecture: Wednesday 9am to 10am
  
• Lecture: Wednesday 10am to 11am
  
• Tutorial: Wednesday 11am to 12pm

 

Course presenter

This module will be delivered by Dr Qaisar Abbas.

 

Funding

This course may be available on a fully funded basis to some delegates.  Further details, including regarding eligibility, are available under Funding Support.

If you have any questions, please contact us at cpd@uws.ac.uk. 

 

NOTE: This is a university module and upon approval of your application, you will be invited to register and then supported to complete enrolment. To enrol on the university system, the first step involves security set-up using the Microsoft Authenticator app; you will need to ensure that you have a compatible smartphone.

Further information is available at the Student Information Portal.

To access this module via the CPD route, individuals should be ordinarily resident in Scotland.  If you do not meet this criteria, please enquire here.