The university puts all its scientific capabilities at the service of society and the government. In this context, the academic staff is always ready to help, in their fields of research, to support the government to develop clean energy and energy-efficient technology policy.

As the university in its mission seeks to contribute to the development of society, it contributes in many collaborative projects with the Lebanese industry under the umbrella of LIRA projects (Lebanese Industrial Research Achievements). Some of these projects aim to improve the energy efficiency and clean energy:

• Project: Smart MPPT Charge Controller for a Solar PV

Brief Description: The main purpose of this project is to design a DC/DC converter that will enable the inversion of a DC power source, supplied by Photovoltaic (PV) Cells, to a controlled DC bus that will be used to connect to a batteries bank. The system will be controlled to operate at maximum efficiency using Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) algorithm and using the powerful charging algorithm for battery bank (multi-stage charge control). 

Industrial partner: EMCO Electronics

Academic year: 2017-2018

 

• Project: Self-Cleaning system for Photovoltaic (PV) Cells

Brief Description: Accumulation of dirt or particles like dust, water, sand and moss on the surface of solar photo-voltaic panel obstruct or distract light energy from reaching the solar cells. This is a major problem since the light obstruction materials pose as external resistances that reduce solar photo-voltaic performance. As one of the promising solution for the electricity problem in Lebanon, installing PV will face the problem of cleaning accumulated dust or dirt. The project realized a smart system that solves the problem of dust or dirt accumulation over the installed PV modules. The system is capable of monitoring large number of distributed PV modules, and uses artificial intelligence to avoid misusage of energy in powering the cleaning system and wasting water used in cleaning the panels. This will lead to increase the energy efficiency of the PV cells.

Industrial partner: EMCO Electronics

Academic year: 2018-2019