Introduction to Renewable Energy

Course Description

Introduction to Renewable Energy has as its main objective the study of the different types of energy sources and storages, renewable energy systems, energy distribution, and energy policy and management. It includes computer-aided analysis of renewable energy resource information and data for evaluating energy potential and energy costs.

Within the SCNS taxonomy, EEL is the Electrical Engineering prefix. The University of West Florida publishes this at 3 semester hours through the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Science and Engineering. It is offered at approximately 4 Florida institutions.

The most useful habit this course builds is the discipline of asking what a stated energy number actually means. A solar array's nameplate rating is its output under standard test conditions that rarely occur; its capacity factor — annual energy divided by what it would produce running flat out — is typically a quarter of that in Florida. Confusing power with energy, and nameplate with delivered, is the single most common error in public discussion of energy, and a student who leaves able to catch it has gained something durable.

The course's inclusion of computer-aided resource assessment is what distinguishes it from a survey. Evaluating whether a site is worth developing means working with real irradiance or wind data, modelling output, and computing a cost of energy — which is the actual entry-level task in the renewables industry.

⚠ The contact-hour figure is derived — the University of West Florida publishes none

UWF's catalog publishes a credit value in semester hours, the college and department, prerequisites, and a description. It does not publish contact hours, a lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course. It does publish a material and supply fee notice on the minority of courses that carry one — and maintains a separate Material & Supply and Equipment Fees section of the catalog — so the absence of a fee notice on this entry is meaningful, while the fee amount is not published here. Every contact-hour value in a UWF guide in this repository is therefore derived. The figure here applies the standard lecture convention of 15 contact hours per credit, giving 45 hours for a 3-semester-hour course. Confirm the meeting schedule with the department.

Learning Outcomes

Required Outcomes

• Distinguish energy from power and use the correct units for each.
• Describe the current global and United States energy mix and its trends.
• Describe the principal renewable resources and their physical basis.
• Describe the photovoltaic effect and the operation of a solar cell.
• Analyse a photovoltaic module I-V curve and identify the maximum power point.
• Describe photovoltaic system components including inverters and mounting.
• Assess a solar resource using irradiance data.
• Describe wind turbine operation and the power available in wind.
• Apply the Betz limit and explain what it constrains.
• Assess a wind resource using wind speed distribution data.
• Describe hydroelectric, biomass, geothermal, and marine energy systems.
• Describe energy storage technologies and compare their characteristics.
• Describe the role of storage in matching supply to demand.
• Describe transmission and distribution of energy from renewable sources.
• Compute capacity factor and interpret it correctly.
• Compute levelised cost of energy for a project.
• Perform a simple economic analysis including payback and discounting.
• Describe energy policy instruments and incentive structures.
• Use software to model renewable energy system output.
• Evaluate energy claims critically against data.

Optional Outcomes

• Perform a life-cycle assessment of a generation technology.
• Describe hydrogen production and fuel cells.
• Describe nuclear generation in the low-carbon context.
• Design a small off-grid system to a stated load.
• Describe energy efficiency as a resource.

Major Topics

Required Topics

• Energy and power units and conversions
• The current energy mix and its trends
• Solar resource and irradiance
• Photovoltaic cell physics
• Module I-V characteristics and maximum power point tracking
• Photovoltaic system design and inverters
• Solar thermal systems
• Wind resource assessment
• Wind turbine operation and the Betz limit
• Hydroelectric power
• Biomass and biofuels
• Geothermal and marine energy
• Energy storage technologies
• Storage and supply-demand matching
• Energy distribution
• Capacity factor
• Levelised cost of energy
• Project economics and discounting
• Energy policy and incentives
• Computer-aided resource and cost analysis

Optional Topics

• Life-cycle assessment
• Hydrogen and fuel cells
• Nuclear generation
• Off-grid system design
• Energy efficiency as a resource

Resources & Tools

• Masters, Renewable and Efficient Electric Power Systems — the most widely used text for this course, and it is written for electrical engineers rather than for a general audience.
• NREL System Advisor Model (SAM) — free; the industry-standard tool for renewable project performance and financial modelling, and exactly the "computer-aided analysis" the catalog describes. Learning it is a genuine resume line.
• PVWatts (NREL) — free; quick photovoltaic output estimates for any location, including any Florida site.
• NREL National Solar Radiation Database and Wind Toolkit — free resource data at high resolution.
• NREL Annual Technology Baseline — free; current cost and performance assumptions, and the defensible source for a project's cost inputs.
• EIA (eia.gov) — free; United States energy statistics, including Florida generation and fuel mix.
• IRENA and IEA reports — largely free; international cost and deployment data.
• Lazard's Levelized Cost of Energy analysis — free annually, and the most widely cited LCOE comparison in industry.
• Florida Solar Energy Center (fsec.ucf.edu) — a University of Central Florida research institute and the state's own solar research body; free publications with Florida-specific data.
• IEEE Power and Energy Society — inexpensive student membership.

Career Pathways

• Electrical engineers — SOC 17-2071.
• Solar photovoltaic installers and system designers — SOC 47-2231 for installation; design and engineering roles sit above it and are where this course points.
• Renewable energy project development — NextEra Energy Resources, headquartered in Florida, is among the world's largest developers of wind and solar, and site assessment is entry-level work.
• Florida utilities' renewable programmes — FPL operates one of the largest utility solar fleets in the country; Duke Energy Florida, TECO, JEA and OUC all have solar programmes.
• Energy analyst and modelling roles — SAM and PVWatts fluency is directly hireable.
• Energy efficiency and building performance — SOC 17-2199; energy auditing and commissioning.
• Energy policy and regulatory analysis — the Florida Public Service Commission and consumer advocates.
• Sustainability roles in corporations and universities.
• ⚠ A note on Florida specifically: solar deployment has grown very rapidly here, and wind has not. Florida's onshore wind resource is poor, and a student planning a wind career should expect to leave the state or work offshore.

Special Information

⚠⚠ Three UWF energy electives share one prerequisite and overlap substantially

• EEL4283 (Introduction to Renewable Energy), EEL4287 (Future Energy Systems) and EEL4290 (Sustainable Power Systems) all take EEL3111 as their only prerequisite, and their published descriptions overlap on renewable sources, storage, and grid integration.
• The distinct centre of gravity of each, read from the catalog text: EEL4283 is the survey — source types, storage, distribution, policy, and computer-aided resource assessment; EEL4287 is the integration and technology course — grid, microgrid, smart grid, electric vehicles, storage, efficient buildings, cybersecurity; EEL4290 is the economics and markets course — technical and economic characteristics and their interaction in market design.
• ⚠ Because they share a prerequisite rather than forming a sequence, they can be taken in any order — but taking all three will involve real repetition, and the marginal value of the third is lower than the first.
• ⚠⚠ Taking EEL3211 and EEL4213 instead is the deeper route into power engineering. These three are accessible after Circuits I and are genuinely useful; they do not substitute for the analytical power sequence, and a student aiming at utility engineering should not mistake them for it.
• Ask the department which of the three runs in which term before planning around them.

⚠⚠ The asterisk in a UWF prerequisite means the course may be taken at the same time

• UWF's catalog marks a concurrent course with an asterisk, defined on the catalog's Course Information page as: "This course may be taken prior to or during the same term."
• ⚠ This is the single most useful piece of notation in the UWF engineering catalog, and it is easy to miss. A prerequisite written without an asterisk must be completed first; one written with an asterisk may be taken in the same term.
• The practical effect is on time to degree. Reading an asterisked prerequisite as a hard prerequisite adds a term to the sequence for no reason, and in a tightly chained major like electrical engineering that error compounds down the whole plan.
• Confirm with an advisor before relying on it, and note that the registration system, not the catalog text, is what actually enforces the rule.

⚠ The prerequisite is only EEL3111 — and that has consequences

• UWF requires only EEL3111 Circuits I, which makes this course available in the third year and to students outside the power concentration.
• It is not asterisked, so Circuits I must be complete before enrolling.
• ⚠⚠ The light prerequisite sets the depth. Without power systems analysis behind it, this course cannot go deep into grid integration mechanics, and it treats the grid at a systems level rather than analytically. That is the right design for the audience and it is worth knowing before enrolling.
• Students intending to work in power engineering should treat this as a complement to EEL3211 and EEL4213, not a replacement.

⚠⚠ The numbers most often misused in energy discussion

• Power is a rate and energy is an amount. A kilowatt is not a kilowatt-hour, and headlines conflating them are extremely common. This distinction is the foundation of everything else here.
• ⚠ Nameplate capacity is not delivered energy. Capacity factor for photovoltaics in Florida runs around 20 to 25 percent; comparing a solar plant's nameplate rating to a gas plant's nameplate rating without capacity factors is meaningless.
• ⚠⚠ LCOE is useful and it is not the whole answer. It does not capture when the energy is delivered, and energy produced at noon is not worth the same as energy produced at the evening peak. Comparing a dispatchable resource and a variable one on LCOE alone omits the thing that matters most operationally.
• Intermittency is a system property, not a defect of a technology. The cost of managing it depends on penetration, storage, and the rest of the fleet, and it rises non-linearly.
• Watch for cherry-picked baselines in the advocacy literature on every side. Prefer NREL and EIA primary data to summaries of it.

⚠ Florida-specific realities worth knowing

• Florida's solar resource is good and not exceptional — comparable to much of the Southeast, and below the desert Southwest. Cloud cover and summer humidity reduce output relative to what the latitude alone suggests.
• ⚠⚠ High temperatures reduce photovoltaic efficiency. Module output falls as cell temperature rises, so Florida's hottest days are not its best solar days — a counterintuitive result students consistently get wrong.
• ⚠ Hurricane loading is a design condition for any Florida array. Mounting, racking, and wind ratings are governed by the Florida Building Code, which is among the most demanding wind codes in the country, and this materially affects installed cost.
• Florida's onshore wind resource is poor, and there is effectively no utility wind generation in the state.
• Net metering and interconnection rules are set at state level and have been contested; check the current Florida Public Service Commission position rather than relying on older material.

Florida grid context worth carrying into this course

• Florida is close to an electrical peninsula. Its ties to the rest of the Eastern Interconnection run through a limited northern corridor, which constrains how much power can be imported during a shortfall and makes in-state generation and reserve margin unusually important.
• Summer and winter peaks are both air-conditioning and heating driven, and Florida's load shape is dominated by weather to a degree few states match.
• ⚠⚠ Hurricanes are a design condition here, not a contingency. Storm hardening, undergrounding, vegetation management, and mutual-aid restoration are ordinary parts of Florida utility engineering, and the restoration problem is a systems problem.
• Solar has grown very rapidly in Florida, and the state is now among the largest solar generators in the country — which puts the integration questions in these courses directly in front of in-state employers.
• The employers are named and local: Florida Power & Light (NextEra), Duke Energy Florida, TECO, JEA, OUC, and Gulf Power in UWF's own region, plus municipal and cooperative utilities across the state.
• ⚠ NERC reliability standards govern bulk power system operation, and compliance is a real job function — violations carry financial penalties.

FE exam relevance

The Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam is the first step toward Professional Engineer licensure, and in Florida it is administered under the Florida Board of Professional Engineers. Most students take the FE Electrical and Computer exam in their final year. Licensure matters less in electrical engineering than in civil — the industrial exemption means most electrical engineers in manufacturing and product work never need a PE — but it is required for consulting practice, for sealing designs, and for power and building-systems work, which is exactly where Florida's utility and infrastructure employment sits.

Course format and position in the curriculum

• Lecture with problem sets and computer-based resource and cost analysis, as the catalog describes.
• Typically taken in the third or fourth year as a technical elective, and accessible to students outside the power concentration.
• ⚠ Expect economics as well as engineering. Discounting, payback, and LCOE are part of the assessment, and students expecting a purely technical course are sometimes surprised.
• UWF publishes no contact hours, lecture and laboratory split, or terms of offering for any course, and no material and supply fee is noted on this entry. Confirm the offering pattern with the department.

How Florida course levels affect transfer

The first digit of an SCNS number denotes the year of offering, not transferability. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 levels transfer transparently between Florida public institutions, and 3000 to 4000 is unproblematic since both are upper division. The boundary that actually matters is 2000 to 3000, where lower-division credit generally cannot satisfy an upper-division requirement. ⚠ For engineering specifically, ABET-accredited programmes commonly require that upper-division engineering coursework be taken in residence, so transferability of the credit and applicability to the degree are separate questions.

EEL4283 is 3 semester hours at the University of West Florida.