New York Institute of Technology in Vancouver makes it possible to earn graduate degree in energy management

The onslaught of forest fires, hurricanes, and extreme flooding in recent years has made it even more urgent to develop renewable sources of energy and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

It has also sharply increased interest in educational programs that address these important global issues. For example, at the Vancouver campus of the New York Institute of Technology, a master’s program in energy management has taken off in popularity.

“The program started in 2016 with four students,” NYIT associate professor Remi Charron told the Straight by phone. “Now we have over 100 students registered.”

The NYIT energy-management program includes seven core courses and three electives. They cover such areas as alternative energy, power-plant systems, solar energy, environmental audits and monitoring, environmental risk assessment, smart-grid systems, and advanced battery and fuel-cell technologies.

All the courses are offered in the evenings, which makes it possible to study while continuing to work during the days. “If you’re doing it full-time, you could complete it in a year,” Charron said. “Most of the students are doing it in a year-and-a-half.”

For those who prefer a more leisurely pace, it’s possible to complete this master’s program over a five-year period. Students can also obtain a NYIT energy-management master’s degree online through the New York campus. For those who prefer face-to-face instruction, classes take place at NYIT’s campus in downtown Vancouver.

NYIT also offers master’s programs in cybersecurity, finance, management, and instructional technology in Vancouver. The cybersecurity program is being transferred to a new campus at the Broadway Tech Centre beside Renfrew Station.

Charron revealed that NYIT is also developing a master’s degree in computer science, specializing in data science, as well as another master’s in UX/UI (user experience/user interface).

The energy-management program has benefited from a grant from B.C. Housing that enabled the school to create a lab with stations focusing on different energy technologies. NYIT has also created a video series.

According to Charron, most of the students take the elective course in solar energy, which complements the core course in renewable energy. The focus in the elective is on solar photovoltaics, which is taking off around the world.

The course on advanced battery and fuel-cell technologies covers advances in the storage of renewable energy, as well as on fuel cells for larger vehicles. In addition, new faculty will be offering a course on the “smart grid”, which will demonstrate how renewable power sources can become part of electricity-transmission systems.

There’s also a significant amount of economic information imparted to students in this master’s program.

“They learn about different incentive programs and feed-in tariffs and how you can manage that,” Charron noted. “They look at how the utility-rate structures work in terms of when you’re generating and when you need to bring on extra power.”

Many of the students have an engineering or science background.

“Some of them are coming straight from their undergrad,” he said. “Others are mature students that just want to get into either energy efficiency or renewable energy.”

Charron’s expertise is in green buildings, and he’s a certified passive-house designer. For those interested in learning how to reduce a building’s consumption of power, there is an elective course on energy-modelling.

NYIT enables students to apply for fellowships to travel more than 200 kilometres from their campus on a project.

“It’s meant for students to explore the world,” Charron said. “We have four students that went to the Boiling River in the middle of the Amazon. We’ve had two students who went to Abu Dhabi to look at energy efficiency.”