About Energy Engineering

Why Energy Engineering?

“A highly respected engineering qualification and knowledge of real world climate issues and their prospective solutions. If I was to travel back in time, I have no hesitation in saying I would once again choose Energy Engineering!” - Rory Geary, Class of 2008 - 2012

Our modern world depends on a secure, reliable, and affordable energy supply. Energy engineering is crucial to addressing some of the most challenging issues facing the world today, namely how to:

i) reduce human impact on the climate (energy accounts for 80% of EU greenhouse gas emissions) through innovative low-carbon energy supply systems;

ii) provide a better standard of living for the world's growing population through access to sustainable and secure energy supplies.

Energy engineering graduates will be required to source, design, convert, transmit and supply useful energy to meet our present and long-term needs for electricity, mobility and heating and cooling.

If you want to help the world address the energy 'grand challenge' of the 21st century, then Ireland's first accredited degree programme in Energy Engineering is for you.

History

UCC Energy Engineering timeline

1844: Sir Robert Kane, the first President of UCC (then Queen's College Cork), wrote his landmark book on "The Industrial Resources of Ireland", in which he made the first complete description of the energy resources of the country. Kane recognised that Ireland's "sources of power, whether it be coal or turf, or water, lie distributed so uniformly through the land, that the concentration of manufactures, on a few localities, as in England, cannot occur". Today, UCC energy engineering graduates are fulfilling Kane's legacy by harnessing the distributed renewable energy resources of Ireland. Engineering graduates from UCC have progressed to the highest ranks of Irish and international energy companies in sectors such as electricity generation, transmission and distribution, oil and gas, hydropower and wind energy development.

1905: Engineering in UCC was initiated, initially consisting of the study of Civil Engineering.

1914: The first degree course in mechanical and electrical engineering was set up at UCC. Later, additional degree programs were added in the disciplines of Process and Chemical Engineering and Architecture.

2000s: UCC strengthens its reputation in renewable energy technology research, with significant EU project grants, and a new taught Master's programme in Sustainable Energy to allow graduate engineers to move into the renewable energy sector.

2008: An innovative new undergraduate degree programme in Energy Engineering was created to meet the growing demand from the energy-related industries for highly-qualified engineering graduates.

2012: UCC's first Professor of Energy Engineering, Tony Lewis, is appointed. The first group of UCC Energy Engineers graduated and entered employment with employers such as Mainstream Renewable Power, Texas Instruments, and Bord Gais Energy.

2013: UCC School of Engineering leads a new, multi-institution educational project, the Master's of Engineering Science in Marine Renewable Energy. This programme will equip engineers with the multi-disciplinary skills necessary to meet the unique challenges posed by harnessing the enormous wave, offshore wind and tidal energy resources off the coast of Ireland and throughout the world.

2015: UCC's BE (Honours) in Energy Engineering is the first degree programme in Energy Engineering to be accredited by Engineers Ireland as meeting its requirements for chartered membership (CEng).

Energy Engineering Contributing Disciplines

Energy Engineering is a multidisciplinary area of study and is supported by other disciplines of the School of Engineering:

Energy Engineering also features instruction from the following departments:

Applied Mathematics
Computer Science
Mathematics
Statistics
Chemistry
Management and Marketing
Physics