West Texas A&M University Offering Online Renewable Energy Course
West Texas A&M University (via the Alternative Energy Institute) is offering a new online renewable energy course this Spring! Students can now register for the course via the Continuing Education department. The course will be taught about Dr. Vaughn Nelson and Dr. Gerald Chen, with support from Ken Starcher.
Nelson and Starcher have taught two courses online a number of times:
- Wind Energy and Wind Turbines
- Solar Energy
They have over 60 years experience in renewable energy, primarily in wind energy. Drs. Nelson and Chen have been thesis chairs on a number of projects at AEI. Department of Engineering and Computer Science and AEI are developing a renewable energy degree program.
For more info on the course, including info on how to register, click here. Here is a brief description of the course and schedule.
Course Description
Renewable Energy (ET 4395-70) is an overview course with the use of spreadsheets for some analysis.
At the end of the course you should be able to:
- Understand energy and power as it relates renewable energy production.
- Be able to analyze data and predict energy production of renewable energy systems.
- Understand operational parameters of renewable energy systems (mechanical, electrical, control).
- Size systems and predict performance.
- Understand institutional issues; local, environmental, and national.
- Calculate economic values from simple payback to life cycle costs.
Tentative Schedule
Cover one to two chapters per week.
|
Week Of
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Topic
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1/11
|
Orientation (WTOnline), for students new to online
Ch 1
|
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1/18
|
Ch 1
|
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1/25
|
Ch 2
|
|
2/1
|
Chs 3, 4
|
|
2/8
|
Ch 5
|
|
2/15
|
Ch 6-7
|
|
2/22
|
Ch 8
|
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3/1
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Ch 9
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3/8
|
Ch 10
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3/11-14
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Midterm Test Chs 1-8
|
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3/15-19
|
Spring Break
|
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3/22
|
Ch 11
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3/29
|
Chs 12, 13
|
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4/5
|
Chs 14, 15
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4/12
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Chs 16, 17
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4/19
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Ch 18; Graduate Students Final Project Due
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4/26
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Review
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4/30 -5/6
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Final
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