Optional Course "Renewable Energies" (UNPA-UARG / Chemical Engineering and Engineering in Renewable Natural Resources)

Renewable Energy Education

Since 1998, the Renewable Energy Seminars have been held at UNPA-UARG. In 2010, it was instituted as an optional course in the 2nd Semester for the Chemical Engineering and IRNR Careers

Engs. Patricio Triñanes (upper photo) and Jorge Lescano (lower photo) conducting practices with students on Edibon didactic solar equipment from the San Julian Academic Unit - UNPA (2017)

1. Program and main contents

The optional course on Renewable Energies (for 4th yr Chemical and Natural Resources Engineering careers) covers the use of non-polluting renewable energy sources, mainly in rural areas, focusing on rational use of energy in South Patagonia region. It seeks to integrate into engineering training the growing share of renewable resources deployed as substitutes for fossil energy. Knowledge of these energy alternatives applied to rural areas represents a important field of knowledge related to engineering performance.

Download Subject Program (PDF)

Eng. Nestor Cortez carrying out practices with students on didactical RE (SWT) systems at SILOSE (Río Gallegos - 2019)

2. Details of the optional Renewable Energies (ER) course at UNPA

The elective course Renewable Energy (RE) has been taught at UNPA-UARG since 2010, for Renewable Natural Resources Engineering (IRNR – degree code 023) as Course 1908. It was later integrated with the same name, Course 2625, also as an elective in Chemical Engineering (IQ – degree code 069) since 2013.

The course focuses on theory and practical work on the topics of Solar Photovoltaic Energy (PV), Solar Thermal Energy and Wind Energy. Practical classes are carried out on teaching equipment (SILOSE/Río Gallegos and in some courses at the San Julián Academic Unit) and on systems installed on the UARG Campus. In the case of Solar Thermal, students progressively carry out the design using spreadsheets of a DHW (Domestic Hot Water) system based on solar collectors, during the course. Students must also develop a spreadsheet simplified design of a Small Wind / PV system of their choice, which must be later refined and integrated into a Homer Pro (Academic License) system simulation. They must prepare a Final Design PDF integrating their results. Course pass requires the presentation (in Powerpoint or similar) of the results of their DHW system, and of their design of electrical supply using Wind and PV.

Some examples of these Final Design documents and presentations, as well as the associated (zipped) Homer files can be found in next section. Pre-2018 homer files have the .hmr extension which was only compatible with previous versions of Homer Pro.