Electrical Engineering & Renewable Energy (ELERE) program has been carefully designed to satisfy the needs of the Palestinian community, in graduating electrical engineers with particular expertise in renewable energy. Students in this program will be taught, trained, and qualified to serve the ever-important electrical power system and the fast-growing sector of renewable energies and their integration into conventional electrical grids.
Electrical engineers with strong knowledge in renewable energy sources can be stakeholders of global concerns such as the future of conventional resources of energy, gas emissions, pollution, and environment. Therefore, well-educated, trained, and experienced electrical engineers in the field of energy and renewable energy are immanently needed. This is exactly what this program aims at producing.
Finally, it should be mentioned that ELERE program is designed based on the recommendations presented by the most respectful international bodies in the field of electrical engineering and renewable.
Upon a successful completion of this program, graduates should be able to do the following:
Graduates of this program will be able to perform the right analysis and measurements to discover the flues of energy systems and electrical networks, as the graduate will be qualified to suggest related improvement, in addition to generators, transformers, wind turbines, photovoltaic modules, transformers and other related equipment. Furthermore, the graduate will be able to design, stimulate, analyze, and apply renewable and conventional energy systems, or even expand the current systems to meet with the market needs. Other learning outcomes the graduate will be able to use renewable energy software such as Homer Energy, PVSYST, Sketchup and others. The graduate will perform professional research and development studies related to conventional and renewable energy systems.
Due to international, as well as national, need for the exploitation of renewable energy sources, electrical engineers with particular knowledge about renewable energy sources and their technologies are of particular importance. Electrical engineers with the mentality of searching for any possible renewable sources of energy that are available but not noticeable are needed. The ELERE program will produce such engineers.
The idea of employing the different sources of renewable energy available in a special location to generate electrical energy is gaining very high reputation now due to the positive impacts it has on human health, environment, economic situation, power reliability, and others. Such renewable energy sources reduce harmful gas emissions, reduces wastes of power stations, reduce running costs of conventional resources exploitation and usage, improve power systems reliability, and many other advantages.
In our particular case in Palestine, and because we do not own electrical power generation stations, but instead rely upon imported electrical energy, renewable energy sources constitute our only independent electrical power generators. These power generators can participate in solving the problem of electrical power shortage during peak consumption periods of which we already suffer.
Due to their many benefits, the employment of renewable energy sources in producing electricity is being encouraged by official parties in Palestine. Special regulations and facilitations, including subsidies are made to widespread the use of such sources. For example, new governmental constructions and buildings, such as schools, hospitals, and clinics, have to include photovoltaic systems to produce electrical energy.
Therefore, the Arab American University with its Faculty of Engineering & Information Technology finds it important to supply the community with such a program that is going to graduate engineers who are capable of fulfilling the above-mentioned community needs.
Renewable energy is widely spreading across the world. Due to the presence of some of the renewable resources in each country, developed as well as developing countries all are participating in the advancement of this sector.
Upon the above, Electrical Engineering with Renewable Energy program graduates can work locally and internationally in many sectors among which are:
