Green light for new master's around energy
The Flemish government has approved the launch of an English-taught Master of Science in Energy Engineering Technology at the Faculty of Engineering Technology (UHasselt/KU Leuven). This programme prepares future engineers for the many challenges and opportunities involved in the current energy transition.
Master of Science
Producing energy as sustainably as possible, converting it efficiently and storing and managing it optimally. These are the central topics within the new one-year English-language Master of Science in Energy Engineering Technology, the first English-language programme established within the joint study programme of Engineering Technology at UHasselt and KU Leuven. The programme has received the green light from the Flemish government and will be available at the Diepenbeek campus from next academic year (2024-2025) onwards.
Global challenges
The challenges related to energy are enormous. There is the ever-increasing demand for electricity, for instance, due to the rise of electric cars, heat pumps and other applications. Therefore, in addition to dealing with topics regarding renewable energy (solar, wind, etc.) and its storage (batteries), this master focuses on creating a sustainable energy system in which the question of how we can use energy more efficiently is extensively discussed. "As a future engineer, you must be ready to make important contributions to sustainable energy solutions worldwide. Due to the international nature of the programme, this new master's prepares students for that," say Ronald Thoelen and Bert Lauwers, deans of the Faculty of Industrial Engineering at UHasselt and KU Leuven.
"With this international master's, we are broadening our baseline ‘Engineer in Limburg’ to ‘Engineer in Europe’ because we are targeting new international students as well as our own students in the current undergraduate programmes. The CEAD summer schools dedicated to sustainable energy, which we have organised at our faculty over the past three years and to which students have participated, already show that there is a lot of interest for this research discipline."
EnergyVille
Within the master's programme, students gain a substantial amount of technical knowledge about machine learning, energy management systems and materials, but will also get to work in a very practical way. "To do this, we gratefully make use of the state-of-the-art infrastructure we have in our labs at EnergyVille on the Genk campus," says Prof Dr Bart Vermang. "Here we introduce students to our research on new generations of solar cells, batteries and green hydrogen production – research that we carry out in close cooperation with the industry with which we bring students into contact as much as possible during the programme, for instance, in the case of solar energy, with companies like Soltech and EnFoil located at the Thorpark site."
Sustainability at the heart of the programme
At the same time, this new Master of Science in Energy Engineering Technology is also a valuable reinforcement of the training offer within EURECA-PRO, the European network of universities dedicated to sustainable production and consumption of which UHasselt is part. "Within this network, the partner universities collaborate in both research and education on sustainability. This new master's programme is a great added value in this respect since it will allow us to educate students even more broadly in this field", says Ronald Thoelen.
