Micro Renewable Energy Systems As A Vehicle For International Awareness

Abstract

The subject of Micro Renewable Energy Systems is explored as a medium for learning across disciplines, and for global knowledge exchange. Experience from 3 years of course offerings is distilled. Students in these courses came with their own strong motivation to help solve major global problems. Individual assignments revealed the differences between the constraints, resources and perspectives in the US and in places far removed. The course opened avenues for students with experiences in other countries, to contribute their perspectives. As a result, some innovations have been developed, along with a knowledge base to guide others. INTRODUCTIONMissions into deep space and to other heavenly bodies are designed to minimize mass and achieve long-duration reliability. Thus they must also have high efficiency and, in some cases, autonomous adaptation to harsh and varying local conditions, in order to extract resources available from their environment.The research related to these devices deals with the difficult problems that also plague most small-scale power extraction devices on Earth. The field of micro renewable energy systems (MRES), on the other hand, aims to solve problems in bringing family-sized power generators to mass-market consumers. The path towards