Simulation and Modeling of Systems in Engineering Education for the Sustainability. The Renewable Energy Case

Abstract

In this paper we discuss about the use of computer simulations for sustainable systems. We propose laboratory practices for those subjects taught in the Engineering degrees that use systems or plants in their laboratories. The proposal is to use renewable energy systems for those laboratories. The interest in simulation of this kind of systems is focused to forecast their behavior in order to control and actuate over them wasting the less natural resources as possible. In this paper, the use of a didactic material for laboratory practices is explained. This pedagogical resource is published in a web platform (http://model.upc.edu) where the student can find laboratory practices, the instructor explanations and the software to develop new dynamical models. We have the strong belief that undergraduate students must receive an Education for the Sustainability independently of their career together and transversally with the basic and specifically concepts of the own subject.