Dean’s message
Providing the world with energy in an environmentally sustainable and climate friendly
way poses one of the greatest challenges to mankind. Solar energy will play a prominent
role in the generation of electrical energy, whose global consumption is growing even
faster than the total energy consumption. The rapid growth of the use of electrical energy
is driven by the pervasive digitization of our society, rapid urbanization and the growth of
public and private electrical transportation. Annually, the global production of energy is
close to a Zetta joule (10
21 J), of which about 20% of this is electrical energy. In turn today
about 1% of this electrical energy is generated by solar systems.
By coincidence the world population generates a Zettabyte of information per year.
One byte of information per joule consumed. Fortunately, the information generation is
growing a lot faster than our energy consumption, which is hopefully indicative of our
potential to find smart solutions for the generation, transport and use of energy. For the
increased use of solar electricity, such smart solutions are inevitable. Smart grids are
essential for the transport and efficient use of electricity generated by distributed and
variable sources. Smart integration of solar power generation in urban environments is
another enabler of its increased use.
The solar energy research program at Delft University of Technology is one of the
leading programs of our faculty. Its researchers hold key positions in the global solar
energy community and their innovative solutions are applied in our society, both by large
corporations, start-up companies and in the public domain. In addition, the research team
plays a significant role in sustainable energy education at our university and large groups
of students follow their courses. Sustainable energy attracts many Dutch students as well
international students of master programs such as Sustainable Energy Technology.
The pervasive presence of digitization, as mentioned earlier, has had a significant
effect on our educational opportunities as well. This is illustrated by TU Delft’s leading
position in Massive Open and Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of online
education. One of our first MOOCs was about solar energy. This course, provided through
the edX-platform, was hugely successful and attracted close to 60 thousand participants in
its first edition. Now, in its third run the total number of enrolments will be well over a
hundred thousand.
In addition to the English language version, this MOOC runs in Arabic and will be
presented in Chinese too with the support of our partner organisations. The enormous size
Providing the world with energy in an environmentally sustainable and climate friendly
way poses one of the greatest challenges to mankind. Solar energy will play a prominent
role in the generation of electrical energy, whose global consumption is growing even
faster than the total energy consumption. The rapid growth of the use of electrical energy
is driven by the pervasive digitization of our society, rapid urbanization and the growth of
public and private electrical transportation. Annually, the global production of energy is
close to a Zetta joule (10
21 J), of which about 20% of this is electrical energy. In turn today
about 1% of this electrical energy is generated by solar systems.
By coincidence the world population generates a Zettabyte of information per year.
One byte of information per joule consumed. Fortunately, the information generation is
growing a lot faster than our energy consumption, which is hopefully indicative of our
potential to find smart solutions for the generation, transport and use of energy. For the
increased use of solar electricity, such smart solutions are inevitable. Smart grids are
essential for the transport and efficient use of electricity generated by distributed and
variable sources. Smart integration of solar power generation in urban environments is
another enabler of its increased use.
The solar energy research program at Delft University of Technology is one of the
leading programs of our faculty. Its researchers hold key positions in the global solar
energy community and their innovative solutions are applied in our society, both by large
corporations, start-up companies and in the public domain. In addition, the research team
plays a significant role in sustainable energy education at our university and large groups
of students follow their courses. Sustainable energy attracts many Dutch students as well
international students of master programs such as Sustainable Energy Technology.
The pervasive presence of digitization, as mentioned earlier, has had a significant
effect on our educational opportunities as well. This is illustrated by TU Delft’s leading
position in Massive Open and Online Courses (MOOCs) and other forms of online
education. One of our first MOOCs was about solar energy. This course, provided through
the edX-platform, was hugely successful and attracted close to 60 thousand participants in
its first edition. Now, in its third run the total number of enrolments will be well over a
hundred thousand.
In addition to the English language version, this MOOC runs in Arabic and will be
presented in Chinese too with the support of our partner organisations. The enormous size