UC San Diego MAE-119: Introduction to Renewable Energy: Solar and Wind

This course provides upper division science and engineering students with an introduction to the essential elements of renewable energy technologies, as well as the underlying issues of energy demand, its link to human development, and a basic introduction to the physics of climate change and the Earth's carbon balance.  We will look at what possible energy sources and conversion schemes could be used to meet future demand, and identify those that could "scale" to meet a significant (~10%) fraction of this demand.  Will then focus on the scalable renewable technologies.  Students will learn about the basic principles of solar radiation—diffuse and direct radiation; elementary solar energy engineering—including both solar thermal and solar photovoltaic technologies; basic principles of wind dynamics—hydrodynamic laws, wind intermittency, Betz’s law; elementary wind energy engineering; solar and wind energy perspectives; challenges that arise when operating the electrical power grid with significant fractions of renewable energy sources.   Will take a brief look at deep geothermal technology as well. Time permitting, we will give an introduction to energy storage technologies and provide perspectives on electrochemical storage application to renewable grid integration and ground transportation.  The class closes with an examination of technology diffusion, learning curves and projections about near-term and longer-term adoption of renewable energy technologies.

Final Exam Review Questions