This week, the University of La Laguna is hosting the in-person portion of a course on smart grids and blockchain in energy, promoted within STARS EU, coordinated by Professor Benjamín González of the Department of Industrial Engineering. For this reason, 15 master’s degree students from three partner universities in the alliance—the Krakow University of Technology (Poland), the Hochschule Bremen – City University of Applied Sciences (Germany), and the Polytechnic University of Bragança (Portugal)—in addition to the enrolled local students, traveled to the School of Engineering and Technology, where the course is held.

The Director of the Internationalization Secretariat, Judit Mendoza, welcomed the new students, inviting them to enjoy the experience and take advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas and expand their knowledge. Also present at the opening were two professors from the Portuguese institution: Ângela Ferreira, the founder of this course, which is in its second edition this year (2025), and José Lima.

Ferreira herself explained that “smart grids” are electrical infrastructures with a high degree of digitalization, capable of supporting real-time operations and combining monitoring and automatic control actions to help preserve system integrity. “They are very important today; we saw this with the recent blackout that affected Spain and Portugal, so the idea of ​​this course is to explore tools for understanding, designing, operating, and optimizing modern electrical systems that integrate digital technology, communication, and renewable energy sources.”

During her opening remarks, Ferreira conducted a roundtable discussion in which the students introduced themselves and shared their personal and academic interests. At that point, she expressed her satisfaction with the fact that a third of the attending students were female, an encouraging indicator given the low female presence in so-called STEM degrees.

Visits, presentations and collaborative projects

Benjamín González introduced the content of these in-person sessions, which will run until Thursday, May 29th. These sessions will include a visit to the facilities of the Institute of Renewable Energy Technology (ITER) and the host school’s laboratories; the presentation of initiatives such as the European project on energy communities, Satcomm; the technical master’s degrees from the University of La Laguna; and the development of collaborative group work by students, which will be presented together.

This course follows the format of the Blended Intensive Courses (BIP) of the Erasmus+ initiative, in which students receive intensive, online instruction on a very specific topic from instructors from all the universities involved. Smart Grids, which began in February, is now being held in person on the University of La Laguna campus. The course is also part of one of the thematic interest groups (TIG) that articulate STARS EU’s activities, the Energy Transition group, led by the University of La Laguna, with Benjamín González as coordinator.

Twenty five students from eight universities in seven European countries will complete this week at the University of La Laguna the in person part of a BIP course on Smart Grids promoted by the STARS alliance.

Specifically, the course is one of the results of the Thematic Interest Group on Energy Transition coordinated by the ULL. This teaching proposal had a course load of 6 ECTS credits and was structured in four modules: Sustainable low-carbon technologies in the electricity system; Digitalisation (and sensorisation) of electricity grids; Modelling and computation of power systems; and Operation and control of (micro) smart grids.

In the first session of the course, held today Monday 12 June in a classroom of the School of Engineering and Technology, these European students were welcomed by the Vice-Rector for Internationalisation and Cooperation, Inmaculada Pérez; the Director of the Secretariat for Mobility and Cooperation with Europe, José Sigut; one of the professors of the course, Santiago Torres; and the coordinators of this BIP: Benjamín González, from the University of La Laguna; and Ângela Ferreira, from the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal).

During the welcoming ceremony, the academic authorities thanked the students for their effort to come to Tenerife, a distant destination for many of the participating people. Professor Benjamín González also valued the commitment of these students to this project because, as he pointed out, the energy transition is one of the most immediate challenges facing society, and the young people who are taking this training today will be the experts who will have to solve it in the future.

During the week that these students remain at the University of La Laguna, they will participate in various group problem-solving activities, presentations by guest speakers, and also visit different university facilities, such as the BiblioLab, and external ones, such as the Technologic Institute of Renewable energies (ITER).

Apart form ULL, three other intuitions belonging to the STARS EU alliance have also participated in the organisation of this BIP, such as the Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Holland), the Crakow University of Technology (Poland) and the Bremen University of Applied Sciences (Germany). They have also been joined as co-organisers by the Slovak University of Zilina.

Although this BIP course is promoted by STARS EU, its call was open to institutions outside the alliance. Thus, students from two Polish institutions (Cracow University of Technology and Konin University of Applied Sciences), one Czech (University of Hradec Králové), one Hungarian (University of Nyíregyháza), one Finnish (Novia University of Applied Sciences), and the co-organisers Bragança Polytechnic Institute, University of Zilina and University of La Laguna attended the meeting at the University of La Laguna.

The STARS EU Alliance offers five BIP during the 2nd semester 2022/2023 in the following topics:

• Challenge Based Innovation (6 ECTS credits)
• Circular Bioeconomy (6 ECTS credits)
• Cybersecurity (6 ECTS credits)
• Emotional Education (6 ECTS credits)
• Smart Grids (6 ECTS credits)

BIP are short and intensive training programmes, including online cooperation by combining physical mobility with a virtual part, and promoting and using innovative ways of learning and teaching, research-based and challenge-based learning.

The virtual part will allow the participation in teaching/training of experts from all partners. The physical short-term mobility will allow the face-to-face cooperation of teachers and participants.

Students can maintain their study plan at home institution and include the BIP training as parallel activity. The short-term physical mobility will constitute the only period outside their home institution. Students will credit the BIP at their study plans.

Physical mobility support

The individual support to students and teaching staff for the physical mobility should be provided by the sending organisation, that can use their own regular Erasmus funds for mobility. Short-term student mobility grants are now allowed for BIP within the new Erasmus+ programme.

For more information about the STARS EU BIP for the 2 nd semester 2022/2023 please see the following PDF file:
Blended Intensive Programmes available at the 2 nd semester 2022/2023

Students from the STARS EU partners and also from other Erasmus HEIs can still apply to one (and only one) of these BIP and receive ECTS credits.

BIP for Teachers
In addition, it also has been designaed a BIP program especifically intended for teaching staff, called “Unlocking Imagination”  and will address contes as transdisciplinary creativity fields and approaches; methodologies fostering individual and group creativity potential and Design, implementation, and evaluation of creative
processes, among others.

ABoth students and teachers applications can be  formalised at www.ipb.pt/bip

 

Applications at www.ipb.pt/bip