“Renewable Energy. A Challenge for the Future”

The European society of Lykeio Agiou Nikolaou visits the ‘photovoltaic park’ of The University of Cyprus

On late December 2009 the European Society of our school visited the photovoltaic park of The University of Cyprus in Nicosia. Among other things,students there do research on theperformance of various PV’s which are provided by a University in Germany. (Cyprus, with so much sun is an ideal place for testing PV’s).

Georgia Charalampous and Nataly Psatha

A PhD student showing one of their motorbikes with no engine. It runs with a battery of course. What is important is that the electricity for the batteries is from photovoltaic panels.

Imagine a world with electric cars

You drive all day with battery power.When you go home in the evening yourecharged the battery for the followingday and this only takes a few minutes.The electricity for the recharging is fromPV panels on the roof of the house.Free energy, no fumes, no noise, no CO22So the technology is here. Are we crazy?What’s wrong with this world?

The European society of Lykeio Agiou Nikolaou visits the ‘photovoltaic park’ of The University of Cyprus

Conference in FranceThe group of students and teachers of the program worked in three

projects: The renewable energy in Cyprus ( past,present and future ) Photovoltaic systems in Cyprus

A game on renewable energy which was presented at our conference in France

The students constructed a model about

renewable sources of energy.

Project teams were formed in each participating school and a number of activities were set up, like:

* Attending seminars about energy* Studying energy sources* Visiting local power stations* Learning about the social and environmental impact of using different energy sources* Creating models for saving energy* Creating new teaching materials* Construction a maketa and photovoltaic panels installation.

A model of the st. Nicholas Lyceum with the photovoltaic.A model of the st. Nicholas Lyceum with the photovoltaic.

Conference in Italy

The group of Comenius students worked on a project named Global Warming and Cyprus which was presented at the Lipari conference in Italy in September 2010. Upon their return to Cyprus they informed the rest of the group about their experiences.

Wind power park in Paphos

The teachers and students who are involved in the project visited a wind power park in Paphos. They took photes of the park and took measurements to see if the energy provided was sufficient for the needs of the area. Then a specialist explained how the whole system worked and how it was constructed.

Conference in Denmark

The group initiated a pilot project about the house of the future in the climatic conditions of Cyprus by using renewable sources of energy like photovoltaic and solar panels instead of using the traditional sources of energy. Then they went on to make a maketa about the house of the future which was presented in Denmark in February.

Visiting a house with an autonomous PV systems

The house was fully covered its energy needs by placing autonomous system PV 3Kw in conjunction with the application of basic principles of bioclimatic.The system of PV in the house consists of 17 panels mounted on the ground with the views to the south without a physical barrier in sight.

Visiting a house with an autonomous PV systems

The storage of energy is on 24 battery. The batteries are connected in parallel.The system consists of three converters DC to AC.

Difficulties

Our education system does not really allow us (teachers and students) to work on other subjects other than the curriculum. So, if we want to really work on a subject not included in the curriculum , we have to work during our free time. As far as this subject is concerned, our students did not have the appropriate time to work on the project but since they had enough background they worked on that more efficiently. As a teacher it took me approximately one hour per week for the whole year. I think it is not possible to have planned Comenius activities done in classroom because we have to follow the educational programmes are provided to us by the Ministry of Education