About us
Who are we?
The Solar Energy Research Center, SERC, is a mulitdisciplinary research group and a part of the subject Energy and Environmental Technology at Dalarna University College, Högskolan Dalarna. We are located in our own building at Forskargatan 6 opposit to Teknikdalen in Borlänge.
At present we are some fifteen members of staff, which includes technicians, researchers and Ph.D. students within a number of disciplines. Directly adjacent to our offices there are well equipped thermal, combustion, and optical laboratories, and also the "solar yard" which is used for measurement of components and systems outdoors.
The annual turnover is about 12 million SEK. Large financial supporters include FORMAS (The Swedish Research Council for Environment, Agricultural Sciences and Spatial Planning), Energimyndigheten (The Swedish Energy Agency), Nordisk Energiforskning (Nordic Energy Research), KK-stiftelsen (The Knowledge Foundation) and Högskolan Dalarna. About 75% of the research funding is from external sources (outside the university)
What do we do?
SERC is engaged in both research and education as well as distribution of information. As a multidisciplinary group in energy reserach we have researchers with different academic back grounds such as technology, science and social science. The research is mainly applied with collaboration with partners in the region such as industry, energy companies but also shools and other organisations.
Research and Development is mainly focussed on small scale renewable energy, households use of energy and professional actors decision making in energy related issues. At present we are concentrating in particular on the following five research themes:
Among the R&D projects being carried out are both pure technology development and evaluation projects in co-operation with companies, and basic studies of different technical solutions, and also social-science based studies of energy policy decisions and the acceptance of different energy technologies.
SERC has built up collaboration with a number of institutions and organisations, both national and international. As well as our PhD students being attached to a number of different universities in Sweden we take an active part in different organisations regionally (e.g. through GDE-net –a regional energy agency), nationally, and internationally (e.g. through IEA SHCP task 32 as well as Nordic- and EU projects).
Education is mainly concentrated to ESES, The European Solar Engineering School. ESES is a 60 ECTS* (one year) programme leading to a one-year master of solar energy engineering. Tuition is in English and comprises studies of solar heating technology, solar electrical technology and also an introduction to fields such as passive solar energy and solar energy for tropical climates. The academic year finishes with a master level thesis where the students are often able to carry out a project in conjunction with an on-going research or development project at SERC or at universities and companies abroad. In collaboration with the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm wa can also offer a two-year master programme in sustainable energy engineering with specialisation in solar energy engineering.
Besides ESES we also have short solar energy courses and different externally orientated seminars which more directly are intended for consumers and companies in the energy field.
*ECTS – European Credit Trading System
Our vision
Since the start 20 years ago work at SERC has steadily grown and matured academically to become a large and active research group. We are not content with this but want to continue to develop within our role as an important actor for the technical development and the increased use of small scale renewable energy technology.
Our common vision has been formulated as follows:
In 2010 SERC shall be a leader in Sweden, important in Europe, and of interest to the whole world within interdisciplinary research which contributes to an orderly and peaceful change of the society’s supply systems from finite to sustainable energy sources. This shall take place by:
- Educating people for work within
- Research within
- Co-operation within
1. Energy supply and resource management, in particular solar energy and bio-energy
2. Societal and cultural processes in connection with the above
3. Implementation of results of technical and social scientific research
By 2010, SERC’s twofold aim of widening its own experience and making use of its competence shall have created good working interfaces and contact organisations for active collaboration and interaction with different spheres in community life and the business sector.
Does this sound interesting? Feel free to contact us, for example by ringing one of our staff direct or through the university (Högskolan Dalarna) exchange (+46 (0)23 77 80 00). Visit ESES web site www.eses.org.
