Electronic engineering student holding project

School of Energy and Electronic Engineering

Find out more about the teaching and research activities taking place in our School of Energy and Electronic Engineering

Teaching | Research | Our staff | Explore our faculty | Contact us

How we create, distribute and use energy is one of the fundamental aspects of how societies function. At the School of Energy and Electronic Engineering, we explore how technology is used to understand and improve the way we interact with energy in all its forms. This ranges from building an online diagnosis tool for solving issues with nuclear power plants, to increasing the functions and usability of prostheses and using machine learning to predict electricity consumption.

Our School has a proven track record of preparing students with appropriate skills and knowledge for employment – 94% of our students are in work and/or further study  (HESA Graduate Outcomes Survey conducted in 2019/20).

Our culture of collaboration and free exchange of ideas in research and teaching encourages and challenges our students.

Discover Energy and Electronic Engineering

Discover more about the School of Energy and Electronic Engineering, where we explore how technology is used to understand and improve the way we interact with energy in all its forms.

Video showing teaching, research and facilities available in the School of Energy and Electronic Engineering at the University of Portsmouth (no dialogue). 

Teaching

Our active and engaging teaching supports our students as they obtain the skills and knowledge for successful employment after graduation. Students challenge assumptions, develop their own projects, and work with peers both in the classroom and in external competitions. 

Read more about our key undergraduate programmes, BEng / MEng Electronic Engineering and MEng BEng Renewable Energy Engineering – or browse all of our undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, on the engineering subject area page.

Throughout their time with us, students are encouraged to take control of their careers and differentiate themselves from their competition in the employment market. With the support of the University, students have the opportunity to improve their skills — and their knowledge of different job profiles — through extracurricular projects, work experience opportunities and industrial placements.

Each allows students to enhance their studies with the experience they gain, and can boost their career prospects after graduation.

Extra-curricular opportunities

  • The school runs a Badges framework, in which students earn recognition for their extra-curricular activities, and which helps students stand out in job interviews as a tangible demonstration of their skills.
  • Extracurricular activities are organised by students for students and often include participation in inter(national) competitions organised by external organisations such as NXP, the IET (our accrediting body) and more.
  • UAS drone design challenge – Each year, our student led drone team applies their learning in the lab and classroom by building a manned or unmanned drone to compete in the UAS Challenge against teams from all over the UK. Completing a real-life project measured against industry-like milestones during your degree is an excellent proof of employability. 
  • Formula Student racing car competition – Our UPRacing EV team competes in the international Formula Student competition, where students plan, design, cost and build a single-seat race car before competing against other teams at Silverstone and Circuit de Catalunya. The project brings together students across engineering schools as they gain practical experience as well as financial and project management skills in a fun and competitive environment. In 2019, our team won the Class 2 competition, in which they created a complete design for a racing car, and came third out of 90 teams in the 2021 international Class 1 competition
  • The Portsmouth Chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers – The student-led chapter organises field trips, careers seminars, guest lectures and networking opportunities as part of a network of 337 university chapters.
  • NXP Challenge – Students design and race a small autonomous car in an international competition, developing valuable skills in hardware, software and project management.  
  • Engineers Without Borders (EWB) Design Challenge – each year, EWB identifies a problem faced by citizens of underdeveloped or developing countries, and asks student groups across the world to solve them. The curriculum at Portsmouth builds this challenge into our assessments, so our students’ work is automatically entered into the competition
  • School Projects – Summers may be time to relax, but some of our students relax by getting involved in the School’s research projects. We advertise all research projects open to student involvement, and the students who join in get valuable research and development experience while also working in their fields of interest. The school also holds a database of competitions on Moodle that the students could pursue in their free time. They are able to claim badges as they complete these projects and attend different development activities.

Work experience opportunities

We have strong links with employers and our students can access varied placement opportunities. Our students have done work placements at organisations including XMOS Core, Airbus, Portsmouth Water, Spirent, IBM and Apollo Fire Detectors. Many of our graduates go on to work for the same companies where they do their placement.

Placements in industry

We support and encourage our students to take a year-long placement, to help them stand out amongst the thousands of graduates competing for a graduate role soon after finishing study. 

Placements can be taken up across the UK and abroad, in small, medium and large companies. We are also part of the UK government's Turing scheme, offering summer and yearlong study abroad opportunities. 

Opportunities to create self-employed and start-up placements are built into our engineering curriculum, with entrepreneurial skills taught in the compulsory Enterprise module at level 5. This module includes our SENE Start Up fund, a competition that awards seed funding to the group that submits the best business plan, encouraging entrepreneurship as they test their start-up idea. 

Read more about technologym maths and engineering placements

Research

Our energy and electrical engineering research encompasses a range of activities related to energy and electronic engineering, and explores methods and theories — as well as their application in tackling real world problems and challenges. We bring together researchers with expertise in electrical power systems, renewable energy, control systems, robotics, intelligent systems and signal processing.

We've had an impact in the safety of nuclear power plants in India, the adoption of clean solar energy in the 2 seas region of northern Europe, the development of an energy autonomous community in the Isle of Wight, disruption analysis tools for the railway industry, and establishing a condition monitoring system for Stork Food and Dairy Systems to predict catastrophic failures in machinery.

Our leading experts and postgraduate researchers produce innovative, results-driven research to improve technology. Our REF 2021 results prove we're moving in the right direction — 75% of our engineering research outputs were judged to be world-leading or internationally excellent.

Browse the list below to see some of our recent work, and the impact it's making:

  • We're researching how to make air compressors more efficient using AI and earlier detection of breakdowns. Air compressors account for more than 10% of UK industrial energy use, so our research could drastically cut resource demand.
  • We're creating energy efficient storage equipment in data centres.
  • We're part of the Interreg 2 Seas project SOLARISE — a cross-university initiative to increase solar power generation in England, France, Belgium and the Netherlands. SOLARISE aims to boost the adoption of solar energy in historical and public buildings and households, demonstrate future technologies through living labs, and lower the impact of the integration of solar energy on the electricity grid.
  • We're working collaboratively with other schools and universities to create an affordable artificial arm for low income countries.
  • We're rolling out AI to automatically analyse flight data at different heights to better detect and measure safety during flight descents, and improve safety training.
  • The Innovative Industrial Research Group is analysing complex data-sets on a large scale to create smart solutions to problems in aviation, energy efficiency, on-sea operations and food supply chain management.

Our research expertise

Energy and electronic engineering research

We're researching how to explore methods and theories in energy and electronic engineering, and their application to real problems.

Partnerships and funding

We've carried out collaborative research with external partners including iRed, STS Defence, Southern Railway, University of Nottingham, Fortissimo, Tructyre, RL Capital, SoftIron, PML Flightlink, Flight Data Services, and European Technology Ltd.

We've received research funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, Innovate UK, BEinCPPS, Technology Strategy Board, Royal Academy of Engineering, South East England Development Agency, Bridgeworks Ltd, Spoon2 Ltd, and British Council Turkey.

Our research centres

Much of our exceptional research takes place within the following cross-disciplinary research centre – find out more below.

Innovative Industrial Research Group

We're researching how to improve industrial performance through the integration of AI in products and services.

Our staff

David Lorater Ndzi Portrait

Professor David Ndzi

Head of School

david.ndzi@port.ac.uk

School of Energy and Electronic Engineering

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Victor Becerra Portrait

Media ready expert

Professor Victor Becerra

Professor of Power Systems Engineering

victor.becerra@port.ac.uk

School of Energy and Electronic Engineering

Faculty of Technology

PhD Supervisor

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Abdulkarim Naji Tawfik Portrait

Dr Abdulkarim Tawfik

Principal Lecturer

Abdul.Tawfik@port.ac.uk

School of Energy and Electronic Engineering

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Explore our faculty

Explore the other Schools and Departments that make up the Faculty of Technology.

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Technology Facilities; 31st May 2019
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Faculty of Technology

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Contact us

To get in touch, please contact our Faculty office.

+44 (0)23 9284 2993

tech-enquiries@port.ac.uk