Testimonial Daniel Blommestein
The minor is very well structured and consists of compulsory courses and electives.
Background
When I was little I developed a great interest in renewable energy technologies. At that time most of my family, and my dad in particular, was working in the transportation sector. A sector heavily dependent on the fossil fuels. My dad has always told me that during my career, as the depletion of fossil fuels is inevitable and the demand for cleaner technologies is growing, I will experience the transition to new energy systems. This made me destined to become part of this transition and work towards a more renewable future.
Bachelor
As a student mechanical engineering, I have already enjoyed a great focus on sustainable engineering. The minor electrical sustainable energy systems presents a great opportunity to extend the knowledge that I have already acquired during my bachelor. But even if your own bachelor is not heavily based on physics you can absolutely enjoy this minor with the correct attitude and effort.
Courses
The minor is very well structured and consists of compulsory courses and electives. The compulsory courses are aimed to introduce you to the fundamentals of renewable energy and electrical engineering and the electives offer you the possibility to further explore the subjects that interest you most. I picked the introduction to wind energy and the reliability of energy systems as my electives. The introduction to wind energy gave me an introduction to the topic in general and included three lectures by guest speakers on the topic. The reliability of energy systems was my personal favourite. Inspiring lectures by a passionate teacher in combination with interesting practical sessions resulted in a very good course.
Projects
The theoretical part was supported by two projects. The first project, implementing renewable energy, was exploring the different implementations of fuel cells and solar panels. This included measuring voltages and currents to find the maximum power point, soldering a buck-converter and designing an algorithm. The second project, design of sustainable energy supply, focussed on designing a system to connect a group of households to multiple renewable energy sources. This project nicely shows the fickle nature of renewable energy and how to work with it. Your skills of Simulink and Matlab will be greatly improved during this project. You will be working with students from different faculties, this means you will constantly evaluate the solutions from different angles and this results in new insights.
Review
Looking back at the minor, I can say that I am very happy with my choice. It offered me the introduction to renewable energy and electrical power engineering that I was looking for. The electives were tutored by experienced lecturers and the projects were fun while offering the opportunity to implement the acquired knowledge.