Testimonial Noa

Hi! My name is Noa and I am currently doing my bachelor at the faculty of Technology, Policy and Management. I have always been very interested in sustainable energy and therefore choosing this minor was not hard for me. At first I was a little worried that the minor might be too technical since I am coming from TPM, but this turned out not to be the case since there were always fellow students that could help you with certain topics.

In the first quarter I took the courses Reliability of Sustainable Power Systems, Project Design of Sustainable Energy Supply, Sustainable Energy Technologies, Introduction to Electrical Power Engineering Part 1 and Fundamentals of Wind Energy. Out of these courses, the Reliability of Sustainable Power Systems and the Fundamentals of Wind Energy Part 1 courses were electives. My favorite course was Sustainable Energy Technologies because this course gave a great overview of the problems relating to energy and the energy transition. A great variety of technologies were covered in the course, resulting in a very good insight in what sustainable energy technologies have to offer.

In the second quarter I took the courses Introduction to Electrical Power Engineering, Solar Energy and Project Integrating Renewable Energy. Both Introduction to Electrical Power Engineering courses were quite challenging for me, but I definitely learned a lot from them.

During my year, there were no lectures on-campus due to Covid-19. This could sometimes be a challenge, but luckily I got to know some of my fellow students because of the projects. The project courses were quite practical, which I enjoyed. During one these projects we got to design an autonomous or a grid-connected electrical sustainable energy system. In our case, this meant that the network consisted of 160 households that aggregated consumption. By analyzing data about the wind speeds, the solar irradiance and the demand patterns we made a sustainable energy system, so that all households had access to electricity at all times while being economically and commercially achievable at the same time. This project combined a lot of knowledge that we had gained from the other courses in the minor and put it all into practice. It also gave the opportunity to work with interdisciplinary students, which was a great learning experience.

To conclude, this minor has been a great choice for me. The teachers were very committed and passionate about their course. What I enjoyed a lot from the minor was the relevance: sustainable energy is one of the major challenges in the world right now and I found it amazing to learn more about this!