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  • Engineering Education for a Sustainable Future A systematic literature review and a perspective
    Publication . Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, Carlos; Caetano, Nídia; Martins, Florinda; Onofrei, George; Blue, Juanita; Sintejudeanu, Mara; Acitores, Adela; Cruz, Francisco; Erro, Alfonso Martín; Moreno, Susana; Davey, Todd; Collins, Monica Holly; Spada, Dominic
    Education represents a fundamental pillar of society, being an important factor in shaping and building each individual for their future. It is common sense that society, like the world we live in, undergoes adaptations and modifications over time, especially due to the need to resolve issues that allow for improved comfort and greater chances of survival in these changes. There-fore, a question arises: what factor must be highlighted in order to respond to this need? Sustainability presents itself as a preponderant factor in humanity's response to building a more sober, educated, conscious and cohesive society. Educating an individual with tools and qualities based on sustainability, who in the future will have the capacity to reach many other individuals in an educational context, presents itself as a possible way to enhance and disseminate sustainability in social, academic and professional aspects. This study is based on the premise of an ERASMUS + project that aims to provide a possibility for a more sustainable education in the field of Engineering, having as its central point a holistic approach that must be the center of society: Sustainability.
  • Energy Policies, Education and Sustainable Development Goals Applied to Low Developed Countries - a Symbiotic Case Study
    Publication . Martins, Florinda; Silva, Paulo; Felgueiras, Carlos; Almeida Santos, Adriano Manuel; Pereira, Filipe; Caetano, Nídia
    Energy, its use and management, weighs heavily on the burden that each society can impose on a fragile balance of nature, with implications not only environmental and financial, but also social, creating jobs and improving quality of life. Devising strategies that combine these three factors are a valuable option that will yield good results, meeting the challenge of fulfilling the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The most important thing is to implement the old maxim: "no one is left behind", so low developed countries are an opportunity to achieve impressive results, while allowing them to improve their way of life and their comfort. It’s often said that ‘action begets reaction’, so any positive action taken in the community can have social repercussions, such as improving the quality of education and knowledge about sustainability. This study will provide an overview of how energy management and environmental mitigation strategies can impact underdeveloped countries.
  • An Energy Storage System for the Alto Douro Wind Power Plant: A Technical Study
    Publication . Magalhães, Alexandre; Xavier, Celso; Felgueiras, Carlos; Pereira, Filipe; Almeida Santos, Adriano Manuel; da Silva, A. Ferreira; Silva, Paulo; Caetano, Nídia; Machado, José
    Renewable energies are crucial to meeting global demand for environmentally friendly energy at a time when fossil fuels are being cut back. In recent years, and essentially due to the reduced reserves of fossil fuels, Portugal has been promoting investment in renewable energies as a way of freeing itself from energy imports and dependence on fossil fuels. However, despite the high number of hours of sunshine per day and the use of wind and hydraulic energy, production is unstable due to climate variability. All this climate instability translates into fluctuations in the energy released to the grid. In order to minimize this problem, energy storage systems have become a key element in guaranteeing the stability of the renewable energy supply at times of low production. This article presents a feasibility analysis of a renewable energy storage system with the aim of maximizing the profitability of a wind farm located in Portugal's Alto Douro region. As a starting point, a demand analysis is presented, as well as simulations of the system's performance in terms of energy use and profitability as a function of efficiency and power. Taking these assumptions and the analysis into account, a modular lithium battery storage system with high efficiency and fast charging and discharging powers was chosen.