RE - Milestones and Measures
Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU), and the South-South partner Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Novemper (ITS, Surabaya, Indonesia) are RE key partner universities within the Network. In the course of the project the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) will come into the picture.
The RE milestones of the Network are:
- Transfer of knowledge in order to build-up and respectively foster research groups at Oldenburg’s core partner universities in the area of Wind Energy, Energy Meteorology, and PV. Enabling and assisting the partners to build-up full-fledged and independent RE Master’s Programmes, fostering students’ and staff mobility with widely harmonized course structures and mutual acknowledgment of study credits. Multiple and joint degrees respectively and common accreditation are foreseen in the long run. The establishment of a wind research group at NMMU (starting 2010) and the opening of its RE Master’s Programme (2012) will be the start. The already launched RE Master’s Programme at ITS (2009) will be supported.
- Transfer of knowledge from the particular research and teaching foci of the partner universities, i.e. micro-hydro (Surabaya) to the partner universities, including Oldenburg, in order to complement and deepen research and teaching.
- Initiate a joint, international, and interdisciplinary research topic ‘Rural Energy Supply’, faceting different RE technical options. This topic is clearly not restricted to technical aspects but rather looks at political, economic, ecological and sociological aspects of project oriented activities. During the project meetings, workshops with participants from various fields and regions will help to build-up this research topic. Simultaneously, this research topic is a teaching module within the so-called MasterCluster of environment and sustainability related Master programmes at Oldenburg University.
- Initiate an interdisciplinary PhD Programme, involving the partner universities and comprising the three core themes.
- As some of the partner and affiliated universities respectively come from extremely poor regions (e.g. Eastern Cape in South Africa and the Amazon Region in Brazil), there will be several sites to identify the extent to which Renewable Energy Technologies can alleviate the lifestyles of rural people. The already well established Outreach Centre e.g. in Manaus can act as pilot project.
To accomplish the above-defined milestones, specific measures will be taken, i.e. workshops, seminars, conferences, alumni participation, curriculum development, teacher’s training. It is intended to look and apply for additional funding (e.g. EU, different National Programmes).
Renewable Energy (RE)
For the decades to come, energy-related issues will pose increasingly important challenges in a manifold of social and environmental relations and systems. It bears strong linkages to many if not all Millennium Development Goals. In particular, the organisation and implementation of central and decentralised renewable energy supply systems can address the challenges.
Oldenburg University (UO) already looks back on a strong tradition in renewable energy research and teaching. From the very beginning, many of these research and teaching activities have been closely linked to the developing world. Consequently, one important objective of the Developing Sustainability Network is the mutual exchange between RE High-Tech research and methodologically advanced and resource intensive teaching on the one hand, and appropriate and sustainable applications on the other hand, including transfer and outreach activities. The research agenda in the field of renewable energy is no longer exclusively and once and for all defined neither by the academia nor by application demands from industrialized countries alone. It rather follows scenarios of intelligent combinations and mutually beneficial exchange between different stakeholders and industries as well as along its planning and running processes (Gibbs et al. 1994). Given this multitude of options and combinations, a magnitude of research challenges emerges.