DCT-REES Menu
Departments Engineering & the Built Environment
- Architecture
- Chemical Engineering
- Civil Engineering and Geomatics (Durban)
- Civil Engineering (Midlands)
- Construction Management and Quantity Surveying
- Electrical Power Engineering
- Electronic and Computer Engineering
- Industrial Engineering
- Mechanical Engineering
- Town and Regional Planning
- Urban Futures Centre
Aims of the Project
New or revised courses, lab tasks and projects usable at educational institutions, based on state-of-the-art research and industrial development.
Modern DC-lab-inventory at South African partner Universities.
Exchange student internships, projects and real-life proof of concepts to support education and research, and to promote the use of new DC-technologies in various settings.
An international educational community for collaboration between universities.
What’s in it for you?
In collaboration with industry, NGO’s and government, partners have offered and are still offering DC-technology related cases for students in projects. This took place in the safety of labs or at least on campus grounds, using the trailer-based PV Lab. it concerned mostly small scale setups for renewable or alternative Ggeneration, the development and testing of active components, for example for safety and control based on the use of power electronics, solar photovoltaic home systems and nano-grid level solutions for electrification. Next to small-scale setups, the partners have develop several ‘DC real life proof of concepts’ (from here: DC demonstrator) for applications on the micro-grid level. These demonstrators were designed to suit local needs for NGO, commercial and residential challenges. In the EU, some DC real-life proof of concepts exist, and these were used to help to close the gap between university lab testing, industrial R&D and complex, real life settings with higher power and/or voltages.
The DCT-REES project team collaboration initiatives focused on liaison with Industry, NGO’s and governments. Collaboration examples were:
- User or reviewer of new educational materials.
- Partnership in projects for students
- Coordinator or owner of a DC-demonstrator.
- Co-developer of courses for professionals and many similar opportunities.
- Collaboration between South-Africa based Specialised Solar Systems and EU Industry and HEI’s
Collaboration with the DCT-REES team offered insights in the latest results in research and access to industrial R&D for projects and ‘DC real-life proof of concepts’. For a limited number of industrial, NGO and/or governmental partners, the DCT-REES project organized visits to Europe to existing projects, research and real-life proof of concepts. Meeting with leading researchers and entrepreneurs was a part of the programme.
This Project was funded by the Erasmus+ Programme. The Erasmus Programme is a European Union (EU) funding programme, originally established for exchanging students, but since 2014 extended with Erasmus+ to also support education, training, youth and sports in the international context. After extensive project preparations of the 14 universities and partners involved in the DCT-REES Project, a funding of 1.000.000 euros was granted by the EU for a 3–year plan of work packages, including strict financial and quality control