THE DEPARTMENT OF PROCESS, ENERGY & TRANSPORT ENGINEERING

Welcome to information related to our sustainable energy engineering activities.

The energy sector is seeing growth in the number of graduate engineers required with knowledge and working experience of energy use, management, and planning. There are also a number of new industries at an early stage of development which will require technical expertise in energy systems and component design, and the “smart” technologies utilised in the effective energy control in buildings and energy networks/microgrids.

Graduates have also gained employment in other engineering industries as Project Managers, Process and Systems Engineers, Design Engineers, Technical Sales, Modelling Engineers, Project Engineers, and Research Engineers.

An overview of energy engineering as a career including current salary scales is available at the following link;- http://www.prospects.ac.uk/job-profiles/energy-engineer

Job Titles include:

• Energy Management
• Test Engineer
• Installations Engineer
• Technical Support
• Energy Consultant
• Energy Procurement
• Business Development Engineer
• Specifications Design Engineer

Graduates are also securing jobs as Sustainability Engineers working across a multitude of sectors including transport, food and fisheries.

Professional Accreditation

The course is professionally accredited by the Energy Institute (www.energyinst.org) to undergraduate level,  further learning at Masters Degree level is required to meet the education standard for Chartered Engineer. The Energy Institute operates under the Engineering Council (www.engc.org.uk) in the UK and represents all engineering disciplines in the UK and has an Irish Branch (www.energyinst.org/branches/EI-republic-of-Ireland) covering courses in Ireland. The Engineering Council is a member of Federation Europeene d’Associations Nationales d’Ingenieurs (FEANI) through which graduate engineers are recognised in Europe. The Energy Institute, through the Engineering Council, is a signatory to the Washington Accord through which graduate engineers are recognised in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and UK.

The BEng (Honours) in Sustainable Energy Engineering is fully accredited by Engineers Ireland at the Bachelor (Honours) Level 8 educational standard. Further learning is required to meet the educational standard for Chartered Engineer.

Sustainability Engineering concerns responsible use of the world's finite natural resources in a manner which will not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. This requires Engineers to make optimum use of energy and materials, to mitigate any associated environmental impacts, and to fully embrace concepts such as life cycle analysis, disassembly and recycling within the design process.

The B.Eng. (Hons) in Sustainable Energy Engineering has graduated over 250 engineers since its launch in 2010.  Within the Department of Process, Energy and Transportation Engineering the lecturing staff also support the B.Eng. Hons Degree in Chemical and Biopharmaceutical Engineering and courses in Good Manufacturing Practice and Technology at degree and certificate level.  Our aim is to educate our graduates to be versatile, flexible, and well prepared for the different roles they will fulfil as they move along their chosen career path.

The final year projects undertaken by the students are usually industry based, having been developed during a workplacement period. Others are based in some of the CIT research centres which would include; - Clean Technology Centre, the Zero2020 low energy building project and the NSBET sustainable energy building test bed based in the Nimbus research centre.