WS24/25

This module is an introduction to economics. It covers the most important principles of economics taking into account social responsibility and sustainable development. The module engages with the latest research and encourages a critical and reflective approach in providing a foundation in economics for subsequent modules. Students are able to identify specialized knowledge and aspects of economics and compare general and selected cases from the energy sector.

Course Aims:

Students can describe, analyze, and evaluate the role of developing and emerging countries in global energy systems as well as their local and regional challenges, peculiarities, and opportunities. You can explain and apply energy-related macroscopic concepts such as economic development and path dependency. Students understand macroscopic concepts as well as political programs and efforts related to energy in developing and emerging countries and can contextually classify and evaluate measures and developments, especially against the background of the term energy poverty and its characteristics. Students are familiar with various off-grid technologies and can choose between them, including the use of suitable methods of integrative planning. Finally, students can act better in group projects, understand the process of development cooperation and can understand and design central elements in it, and are aware of their responsibility for global as well as local sustainable development.

Course Content:

Global energy (long-term scenarios, determinants of the world energy system, energy in developing and emerging economies); Sustainable development (SDGs, growth and development theory, Hartwick rule, resource dependency, and diversification, case studies); Energy poverty and access (definition, empirical data, generation and consumption patterns of low-income households, subsidies for fossil fuels and reforms, the role of energy efficiency, case studies); Rural electrification and off-grid technologies (off-grid technologies, computer-assisted planning of off-grids including the basics of mixed-integer optimization, economics, and management in off-grids, the practice of development cooperation); Project phase (e.g. off-grid design, development cooperation, business case).

The far-reaching changes brought about by the energy transition are increasingly affecting other industries. Policy objectives and stricter regulations require companies to be more responsive to their energy and resource consumption, but there can also be great opportunities. In addition to potential savings through greater energy efficiency, the utilization of flexibility options can also be used to justify new business models.

In this module, innovative research approaches in the fields of energy efficiency and building technology will be analyzed and applied in cooperation with companies from the respective fields, offering students and companies alike an attractive cooperation at the interface of entrepreneurial praxis, research and science – a win-win situation for both sides.

Students look at aspects of buildings and energy efficiency, including greenhouse gas emissions, demand management, combined heat and power, process chain management, energy efficiency technologies, amortization calculations, local heating and cooling supply, project management, and ISO standards. In doing so, they apply the knowledge gained in earlier modules in practice.