This solar panel monitor and controller, developed by Stage 2 Engineering students in their Group Project module, is just one of the ways in which teaching, research and enterprise undertaken by EDA reflects an increasing awareness of the capabilities and challenges of renewable energy and has helped the School to win the Green Impact Office Depot Innovation Award at the recent Green Impact Awards ceremony where the School was also successful in winning the Green Impact Silver Standard with Honours.
The aim of the project is to measure the energy produced by a fixed and a solar tracking Solar Panel and then compare the costs, and the energy output and input of the two approaches and has been adopted by several groups. Several Stage 3 projects have also been formulated with this awareness in mind and have tackled issues ranging from monitoring the performance of a range of solar panel technologies, developing intelligent battery chargers, monitoring the state of a battery, to developing new particle flow monitors and combustion monitoring systems to detect the stability of the flame in an industrial furnace. Another way of combining modern technology with an awareness of today’s green issues in a teaching environment has been to include a project to produce a poster on an environmental theme of the student’s own choosing in our Undergraduate Digital Photography module which is offered campus-wide.
Within the research domain, reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuel usage and the use of renewable fuels are key themes of the ICES Research Group with several ongoing and completed research projects undertaken by postgraduates, research associates and academic staff. This research was commended at the recent Rushlight awards for technological advancement. In our enterprise activities which support local companies, an exemplar project includes the development of a networked power controller for Energy Solutions Ltd., Medway.
The aim of the project is to measure the energy produced by a fixed and a solar tracking Solar Panel and then compare the costs, and the energy output and input of the two approaches and has been adopted by several groups. Several Stage 3 projects have also been formulated with this awareness in mind and have tackled issues ranging from monitoring the performance of a range of solar panel technologies, developing intelligent battery chargers, monitoring the state of a battery, to developing new particle flow monitors and combustion monitoring systems to detect the stability of the flame in an industrial furnace. Another way of combining modern technology with an awareness of today’s green issues in a teaching environment has been to include a project to produce a poster on an environmental theme of the student’s own choosing in our Undergraduate Digital Photography module which is offered campus-wide.
Within the research domain, reducing the environmental impact of fossil fuel usage and the use of renewable fuels are key themes of the ICES Research Group with several ongoing and completed research projects undertaken by postgraduates, research associates and academic staff. This research was commended at the recent Rushlight awards for technological advancement. In our enterprise activities which support local companies, an exemplar project includes the development of a networked power controller for Energy Solutions Ltd., Medway.