Postgraduate Programme PPRE Renewable Energy NEWSLETTER 2008 | Vol. 27 Content Imprint News from Oldenburg Alumni / Guests visiting PPRE 2 Final PPRE Excursion – summer term 2008 3 Ongoing PPRE co-operations 6 Annual Biogas Workshop at PPRE 7 Experience Reports from students From Oldenburg to Athens in 4 days 9 Experiences report from my Project at Instituto Technologico de Canarias 12 De-Carbonizing China’s Supply Chain’ Conference 13 Field experiences gained in Ghana 14 Project-experiences gained in Freiburg, Germany 15 MSc-Thesis Projects 16 News from PPRE-alumni Careers 20 Wind Energy 26 PV 31 Solar Thermal / Energy Storage 35 Biomass / Bio-energy 37 Related Subjects 39 Further Education / Training / Seminars 43 Reports from Alumni Integration of Renewable Energy in Electrical Engineering Education: The Bangladesh Perspective 47 Field lessons from India 55 Kenya cement firm details planned CO2 emissions cut 61 Latest Achievements at Brandix Casualwear 62 Low Exergy Systems for High- Performance Buildings and Communities 63 Pluralism and Engineering 65 Marketing Photovoltaic technologies in developing countries 66 PhD Research Project “Scale issues in water security” 76 Wind Resource Assessment in Ghana-Challenges and Opportunities 77 Websites of interest 78 Letters to the editor 79 List of former participants 80 Editorial Dear Reader, when my colleague Edu Knagge asked me to write the editorial for this newsletter, I tried to collect a few facts about the newsletter and the alumni networking. First thing that came to my mind is the fact that the e-mail discussion list [email protected], to which nearly all alumni are subscribed, exists now for nearly 15 years. And just recently, when I browsed the archives of the last years at http://www.listserv.dfn.de, I realised who rich the treasures are that have been collected by many of you! The number of contributions to this issue of the newsletter is very impressive - approx. 150 contributions (notes, profiles, reports, etc.) show the active involvement of our growing alum- ni network: including the recent graduates we have approximately 370 alumni (~320 PPRE & ~50 EUREC Core Oldenburg). But the contribution of the alumni is far beyond sending e-mails: as you will find listed in the respective section, they come and teach in the programme as guest lecturers – or work as tutors. We are also looking forward to re-invitations in 2009. But things in Oldenburg are progressing as well. Research in Wind, Solar PV and Energy Meteo is active and growing and the construction site for the NextEnergy institute (funded by EWE, the local grid utility) shows real progress (http://www.ewe-next-energy.de}. We look forward to see Prof. Carsten Agert and his co-workers teach in PPRE. Wishing you a successful 2009 Dr. Konrad Blum Published by: Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg, Faculty of Physics, Department of Energy and Semiconductor Research, Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy—PPRE, D - 26111 Oldenburg phone: +49-441-798.3544, fax: +49-441-798.3990, e-mail: [email protected], web: http://www.ppre.de Editor: Edu Knagge Typesetting & Layout: Sven Ebert Printer: Druckzentrum, CvO University Oldenburg - 800 copies 1 News from Oldenburg Alumni / Guests visiting PPRE Building Physics and Energy Demand of Buildings In this chapter all seminars by external lec- Ms. Herena Torio graduated from PPRE in turers presented to PPRE/EUREC-Students 2007 and is doing her PhD studies at Fraun- during the last academic year are listed. hofer Institute for Building Physics in Kas- These seminars took place besides the sel (www.ibp.fraunhofer.de) in cooperation regular classes, seminars and labs offered with the TU Munich. in the Postgraduate Programme Renewable Energy (PPRE). Rural Electrification Indradip Mitra, India (PPRE 03/04) who is presently doing his PhD-studies which is Winter term 2007/08 sponsored by Conergy AG at University of Kassel, Germany. Rural Electrification / Biomass Energy Laurent Lecesve, France (EUREC 04705) WindFarmer works on his PhD on Rural Electrification Dr. Wolfgang Schlez from the Garrad Hassan- and related subjects (University of Kassel). office Germany presented the Garrad Has- san Software package called ‘WindFarmer’, Climate Change and Justice which is used for wind farm layouts. Schröder/Lotze-Kampen from ‘Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research’ and Hydrothermal Carbonization ‘Institute for Social and Development Stud- Mr. Greve, PhD-Student at Forwind-Institute ies, Munich’. Oldenburg (www.forwind.de). Research experiences gained at Univer- Biogas Compact Course sity Stuttgart and abroad Jan Lam, the Netherlands (PPRE 98/99) and Juan José Trujillo, Colombia (PPRE 2002/03), Felix ter Heegde are well-known interna- who is doing his PhD research at Institute of tional Biogas experts with many years of Aircraft Design, Endowed Chair of Wind En- experience. Both are attached to SNV in ergy, University of Stuttgart the Netherlands and Jan is managing at the moment the Biogas-Programme in Cambo- Comparison of measured and simulated dia – for details of the 4 day workshop see wind speed data in the Northeast Atlan- article. tic and the North Sea Jörg Winterfeldt, Germany (PPRE 01/02), Biogas modelling for the project called who is doing his PhD at Institute for Coastal AGROBIOGAS in Europe (www.agrobi- Research (Coastal Climate) in Geesthacht ogas.eu) near Hamburg, Germany. Jörg was invited Leodegario Lopez, Mexico (Eurec 05/06) by Forwind-Institute. who is employed as researcher at the Tech- nology & Transfer Center in Bremerhaven PV Cell Quality Control ever since he graduated in 2006. Stelio Correia, Portugal (EUREC 04/05), who joined the Ersol Co., Germany (PV Manufac- turer). 2 News from Oldenburg Summer term 2007/08 German Wind Monitor: Characterization and Improvement of the Wind Field Pre- Thermal Demand of Buildings / Solar diction Cooling / Large Solar Thermal Systems Ms. Jinhua Jiiang, China who is research 3 seminars were given by Ms. Herena Torio associate at Forwind-Institute, Oldenburg, Blanco, Spain (PPRE 05/07) – see previous Germany. page. Water Desinfection and Water Desalina- Concentrating Solar Power Applications tion - Presentation of small scale solu- Miguel Gil Zapata is EUREC Graduate 06/07 tions and has worked on this subject in his thesis Ms. Monika Seidel, Freelancer from Munich, project and is working with SENER (www. Germany sener.es) in parabolic through concentrat- ing power plants. Sustainable Energy Supply This 2 day Compact course was presented Low Energy Housing by Prof. August Schläpfer, Murdoch Univer- Topics include: UK Sustainability Targets, sity, Perth, Australia. Current housing and beyond, The ‘Pas- sivhaus’ Biomass to Liquid - The Future of Syn- Andrew Peel graduated in PPRE in 2007 and thetic Biodiesel from Woody Biomass joined the British Research Establishment Michael Sterner, Germany (PPRE 05/07) who <www.bre.co.uk> thereafter. presently is doing his PhD at University of Kassel. Final PPRE Excursion – ited since it was too soon for it to open for summer term 2008 visiting. The new mountain destination was Weilheimer Huette, which is located close On Sunday the 1st of June 2008, Mr. Hans to Garmisch Partenkirschen in the Alps. Holtorf and Mrs. Evelyn Brudler led a group of students and tutors from Oldenburg for a The first stop was in Kassel city where 2 week long final excursion experience. The the EUREC students were picked. Here, whole group consisted of 2 tutors, 15 PPRE SMA – Technologie AG was visited. It is one students, 7 EUREC students and 5 non PPRE of the leading technology developers and / EUREC students. is involved mainly with PV systems, railway technology and innovative systems. The This trip was planned to cover several Re- group had small seminars on SMA in general newable Energy related activities in Ger- and PV technology with emphasis on the PV many, but unlike the previous years, the and battery inverters; the Sunny Boys and dates had been adjusted to make it possible the Sunny Islands. They then had a guided for the EUREC students to take part. This tour around the factory while observing the also meant that the famous Stuedl Huette solar inverter manufacturing processes. in northern Austria was not going to be vis- 3 News from Oldenburg The group then left Kassel and went to Pots- toured. dam where they visited the CO2 seques- tration pilot project of GFZ (GeoForshung- On Thursday the 5th of June, the group vis- sZentrum) – Potsdam. GFZ is a research ited a pumped water storage site operated institute whose earth and environment by Vattenfall Europe generation &Co. KG, arm is involved in research on the conflict- in Markersbach near the Germany - Czech ing demands facing our world one of which Republic border. The group both had a climatic change due to CO2 emissions from classroom session and then a tour where energetic use of fossil fuels. Their CO2 se- they went about 120 meters deep into the questration project is located close to Ketzin ground to the power house. There they saw within the outskirts of Potsdam. Their aim is many components live since part of the in-situ testing of geological storage of CO2 plant was under maintenance and repair. in a saline aquifer. The work program in- Earlier on, the group was able to ascend a volves intensive monitoring of the injected hill to see top of the water reservoir too. The CO2 by using a broad range of geophysical plant capacity was 6 x 175 MW. and geotechnical methods, as well as the development and benchmarking of numer- The following day, the group was in Nuern- ical models and risk assessment strategies. berg and they visited Dehn & Sohne, a com- After a long debate with Mr. Krueger over pany dealing with lightning protection for certain issues during the theory session, the Renewables. The group had a theory ses- group was taken to see the site which was sion on the lightening risks for all Renewa- a few weeks from the start of the CO2 se- bles and the remedies Dehn & Sohne had questration.