Abstract:

The “EHUkhi platform” is a multidisciplinary team of professors and research staff, administration and service staff and students of the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). It has been created thanks to the Campus Bizia Lab (CBL) Programme (which aims to respond to the sustainability challenges within the University Community of the UPV-EHU). The main objective of the “EHUkhi platform” is to promote the solar photovoltaic (PV) development in the University of the Basque Country. This target is expected to be reached thanks to the collaboration of the different members of the team, but specially attracting students to develop their End of Degree Works (EDW) in subjects related with this PV development.

The project foresees the following three phases:
- in the first phase, the main target proposed to the students is to calculate the photovoltaic potential of the different UPV-EHU’s buildings. This phase envisages the use of the following free software: CloudCompare, QGIS and GRASS GIS;
- in a second Phase (and based on the electricity consumption patterns and photovoltaic potential obtained on the previous phase), an assessment of the potential level of electrical self-sufficiency (in energy and economic terms) per Faculty must be calculated. This work will be done by means of the R software tool;
- the third phase is focused on the diffusion of results. It is planned to develop a web-platform for the visualization of the PV potential and electric self-sufficiency potential in an interactive way.

For the consecution of the EDWs, the learning by problems methodology is applied. The process starts with the need to solve a specific problem linked to the promotion of the PV development (i.e. calculation of the photovoltaic potential for the Faculty of Engineering in Bilbao (FEB)). Therefore, students are proposed to carry out an active work based on self-learning problems Solving. Considering the peculiarity of the EDW projects (where the work for its achievement is not based on the traditional classes, but on a close collaboration between the Director of the EDW and the student), the active learning methodology, based on Flipped Learning, is applied.

Currently some results of the first phase of the project are being attained. Different raster maps (2D) that collect the photovoltaic energy production potential of some of the selected areas have been already obtained. Therefore, the project is ready to starts its Phase two.

The fundamental objective of the EDWs is to develop and delve into the training contents received, but also into the capacities, competences and skills acquired through the Degree courses. It can be concluded that, incorporating the mentioned free software in the development of the EDWs, and based on real problems and self-learning problems solving, it has become an opportunity to attain this objective in a cooperative form. Another conclusion is that, for the success of the “EHUkhi platform”, a narrow collaboration between all different members of the group (i.e. administration and services staff, teachers and students of the University) is necessary.

Keywords:

Active Learning Based Methodology, Learning by Problems Methodology, solar photovoltaic (PV), QGIS, GRASS GIS.