Using open software to teach resource assessment of solar thermal and geothermal energy

Abstract

The students of the Faculties of Engineering of the Universitty of Basque Country (Gipuzkoa-Eibar and Bilbao) in the last years of their studies, before becoming engineers, have the opportunity to select a block of subjects intended to enhance their knowledge on renewable energy systems. One of these subjects is Solar Thermal and Geothermal energy. These subjects are devoted to assessing the renewable energy resource, and designing optimal systems. Apart from the transmission of good practices, the focus is practical and is based on hands-on computer real-life exercises, which involves not only intensive programming using high-level software, but also the spatial representation of results. To that purpose two main open source codes are used: Octave (https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/), and QGIS (https://www.qgis.org/). Students learn how to address real-life problems regarding the geographical representation of solar radiation and low temperature geothermal resources using QGIS, and solar thermal system modelling using Octave.