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Focus is on Sustainable Energy Systems Research and Materials and Engineering Systems Education
The account of the Sustainable Energy Systems presentations was provided by Tina Rosan, MIT Portugal Program Postdoctoral Associate.
Several MIT Portugal students and faculty presented their work on sustainable energy systems and engineering systems education in research sessions held on the third day of the Second International Engineering Systems Symposium at MIT June 15–17, 2009 – Engineering Systems: Achievements and Challenges.
Sustainable Energy Systems Research
The Sustainable Energy Systems presentations were made during a session on "Energy Systems Modeling and Analysis."
Patricia Baptista, a PhD candidate visiting MIT from the Instituto Superior Técnico of the Technical University of Lisbon (IST), spoke about her research on scenarios for electric vehicles use on the Azorean island of São Miguel, which includes an evaluation of emissions and electricity demands. Because electric vehicles can be used as storage devices to help regulate the electric load, they can be an important component in the design of energy systems that rely on renewable resources such as geothermal, hydropower and wind, she said.
Professor Richard Larson of MIT Portugal and MIT’s Engineering Systems Division (ESD) and Daniel Livengood, an ESD PhD candidate, presented their research on the Energy Box. The idea behind the Energy Box is to create a unified control system to manage the energy use of various appliances in people’s homes. If there were real-time variable pricing, consumers might be willing to not use certain appliances when energy costs are high – and this could lead to a reduction in peak energy demand. Through a dynamic programming model, the Energy Box will be able to combine information about the weather, appliance use patterns, home comfort levels, energy prices, energy loads, and electric storage, to help make coordinated automated decisions to manage household appliance use and reduce overall energy consumption.
Carlos Silva, Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering at IST and a member of the MIT Portugal faculty, discussed the framework for the program’s Green Islands project. Known as the “Green Islands” for centuries because of their physical beauty and their plentiful geothermal resources, the Azores developed an energy strategy for 2018 that includes the goal of reaching 75 percent renewable energy production through the development of geothermal power plants and wind energy. MIT Portugal has been working with the Azorean government to help reach its 75 percent renewable goal through the development of renewables, the modernization of energy systems, and the promotion of energy efficiency.
Using an engineering systems approach, the Green Islands project addresses the technical, economic, social, infrastructural, and environmental aspects of developing a renewable based energy system. The research uses a TIMES-MARKAL model to develop scoping scenarios to model different futures: business as usual, adding renewable and storage, household efficiency gains, lower demand growth, the introduction of electric vehicles, and combinations of these initiatives. These models have so far demonstrated the need to improve energy efficiency and transportation policies, and to develop energy incentives.
Engineering Systems Education
The ESD symposium also featured three presentations by MIT Portugal faculty and researchers on “Engineering Systems Education – Program Development, Assessment, and Impact.”
Prof. Judy Dori (MIT/Technion) is leading a study of the innovative Product Design and Development course offered to Leaders for Technical Industries (PhD) and Technology Management Enterprise (Advanced Study) students in the MIT Portugal Engineering Design and Advanced Manufacturing (EDAM) focus area. Her research participants were students from EDAM—who took Product Development in an intensive modular course, taught in a condensed schedule with emphasis on project-based learning—and from MIT and two Portuguese engineering schools (IST and the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Porto, FEUP), which all took Product Development in traditional term-length formats.
In her presentation, Professor Dori noted that questionnaire and focus group data showed an interesting spread of how the students from each institution emphasized product development tasks during the project cycle. Some of the student groups emphasized early brainstorming and concept development, others analysis, and other groups focused on later-stage presentations and IP considerations. This data provides a wealth of information that will help focus on learning and skills outcomes of the varying educational designs, from the consortium-based EDAM course to the traditional courses at MIT and Portuguese institutions.
 Professor Arlindo Silva
Professor Arlindo Silva of IST and the EDAM focus area presented a paper on “Some Innovative Aspects of the EDAM MIT Portugal Program,” co-authored with fellow IST-EDAM faculty Elsa Henriques, Mihail Fontul and Luis Faria. Professor Silva emphasized the coupling of research and education that has informed the design of the EDAM program. He noted that the educational programs were built on two challenging collaborations: full-time PhD students work together with Advanced Study students who remain employed at MIT Portugal industry affiliates, and all these students gather as one cohort on a rotating basis at the three institutions that comprise the EDAM consortium (IST, FEUP and the University of Minho School of Engineering). Professor Silva said that out of this challenge have emerged student groups with a high degree of team spirit and openness to collaboration, as well as faculty teams across the EDAM consortium that have formed new working relationships in order to successfully co-teach their intensive modules. The fruit of these collaborations can be seen in the EDAM group’s successful engagement of international industrial affiliates, such as Rolls-Royce and DSM, which host LTI PhD students on research internships.
Professor João Sousa (IST) and Professor João Claro (FEUP) gave an overview of the development of Engineering Systems educational programs in Portuguese universities. Professors Claro and Sousa have both been visiting scholars at the MIT Engineering Systems Division during the past academic year. Based on this experience, they examined the rise of Engineering Systems education programs in Portugal in terms of three areas for development: teaching, research and outreach. For the first two categories, the development and diffusion of sound Engineering Systems methodologies is an important task; it is one in which MIT Portugal can help evolve the system through innovative courses and through its cross-cutting research initiatives, which provide a platform for innovative systems thinking approaches. The presenters expressed hope that a future meeting of the Council of Engineering Systems Universities in Portugal could be a catalyst for Portuguese institutions to enhance their collaboration in working together toward establishing Engineering Systems in Europe.
Presentations from each of the symposium's research sessions are available here.
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