Climate challenge increased demand for Energy Engineering

Climate challenge increased demand for Energy Engineering

The government's push towards increasing the dependency on renewable energy and the e-vehicle programme is expected to amplify job opportunities in the energy sectors. To cater to the growing demands of opportunities in the field of power and energy industries and renewable energy technologies, students need to be trained in courses such as Engineering Mathematics, Thermodynamics and Fluid Dynamics.

Surge in requirement

In India, 228 institutions offer Energy Engineering courses, most of this is offered as a postgraduate (PG) programme. Several IITs such as IIT Kanpur, IIT, Jodhpur, IIT Mandi, IIT Delhi, and others are offering Energy Engineering programmes. IIT Delhi has recently launched a new undergraduate programme-BTech in Energy Engineering. The programme has been designed to equip the students with the essential knowledge and skills to understand the energy sector challenges and design methods to deal with them. The students will be trained to provide solutions to the problems towards achieving sustainable energy, says KA Sub ramanian, head of, Department of Energy Science and Engineering (DESE), IIT Delhi.

IIT Mandi offers an MTech programme on Energy Systems and Energy Engineering since 2016.

Course structure

"The course offers a unique programme of MTech in Materials and Energy Engineering which merges the importance of materials in several renewable energy applications. In this programme, we offer several courses on emerging energy resources, photovoltaics, batteries and supercapacitors, and designing functional materials. We also have elaborate lab courses, characterisation practicums, and hands-on experimentations," says Sumit Sinha Ray, assistant professor, School of Engineering, IIT Mandi.

SSN College of Engineering, Chennai, has been offering MTech in Energy Engineering since 2013. Students from Mechanical, Electrical and Chemical Engineering are eligible to study Energy Engineering as a PG course here. "The programme covers fundamental engineering knowledge and skills in areas such as energy generation, conversion, electrical power systems and energy management along with modules on energy sources, energy policy, energy economics and associated environmental issues," says a spokesperson from SSN College of Engineering. Unlike the already running conventional programmes, IIT Jodhpur has designed a multidisciplinary MTech and MTech-PhD programme in energy, says Debanjan Guha Roy, assistant professor, Department of Civil and Infrastructure Engineering, IIT Jodhpur.

Scope in the field

Energy engineering courses in India provide extensive career opportunities. Guha explains, "The demand for trained engineers has risen exponentially. Additionally, management professionals with training in energy technologies have come to the forefront in creating startups, and opening green energy business arms of existing companies. We have also seen a sharp increase in the demand for policy professionals with backgrounds in energy-related technical areas. So the scope of work for the energy professionals are more varied than other disciplines and we are only going to see a steep rise."

From- The Times of India

Published - 1st November 2021