The British Council has announced that they will support a joint masters educational-research project between Queen Mary and Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in Chennai. The masters will research distributed wind energy for urban and rural requirements, integration and energy conversion.

The project consortium also consists of Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras India and Deutsche WindGuard India. About 20 UK and India master students will jointly pursue multidisciplinary research to find the requirements of small urban and rural users. Emphasis will be on wind resources, aerodynamic efficiency, control and integration with water pumping for energy storage and irrigation. The industrial partner and other stakeholders are expected to adopt new innovative designs that will also be disseminated through conferences and journals.

The master students will go through a joint training programme that includes advanced topics in aerodynamics, mechanics, control, electro-mechanical design and system engineering, while also receiving complementary hands-on computational, analytical and experimental training. The project will be led by Dr Eldad Avital on the QMUL side and supported by Dr Ranjan Vepa, Dr Neil Cagney and Dr Mouna Chetehouna. This exciting project and its opportunities will be offered to SEMS MEng and MSc students and is expected to prepare them well for the renewable energy sector.