Renewable Energy Engineering Masters (MSc): Why renewable engineering?

Global warming and the consequences of climate change will increasingly affect both developing and developed countries, especially if the green house gasses currently increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are not brought under an acceptable level.

A global priority for the 21st century must be to tackle CO2 emissions from fossil fuels, replacing them with sources of energy that are cleaner, sustainable and renewable. According to the International Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), the world's current use of renewable energy is only 13% of overall energy consumption.

In response to this, European Commission directives have set a 20% reduction in the use of fossil fuel in Europe by 2020 and 15% increase in the use of renewable energy in the UK in the same time period. This means that there are business incentives for developing alternative energy resources and technologies as a substitute for fossil fuel technology.

With the expected global growth in the renewable energy sector, there will be a crucial need for qualified and skilled engineers with specialist knowledge of the relevant technology. This MSc course focuses on viable sustainable and renewable sources of energy conversion based on systems using solar, wind and bio technologies.