MSc Renewable Energy and Clean Technology

For entry in the academic year beginning September 2027, the tuition fees are as follows:

• MSc (full-time)
  UK students (per annum): £15,400
  International, including EU, students (per annum): £40,300

The fees quoted above are fully inclusive of tuition, administration and computational costs.

Fees for entry are subject to yearly review. The University reserves the right to increase your tuition fee by up to 7% each year for courses lasting more than one year, including to reflect rising costs associated with delivering our educational and wider student experience. Postgraduate fees information .

Always contact the admissions team if you are unsure which fee applies to your qualification award and method of attendance.

International student CAS deposit

Self-funded international applicants are required to pay a deposit of £2500 towards their tuition fees before a confirmation of acceptance for studies (CAS) is issued. Some applicants will be required to pay a higher deposit. More information on tuition fee deposits .

All students should normally be able to complete their programme of study without incurring additional study costs over and above the tuition fee for that programme. Any unavoidable additional compulsory costs totalling more than 1% of the annual home undergraduate fee per annum, regardless of whether the programme in question is undergraduate or postgraduate taught, will be made clear to you at the point of application. Further information can be found in the University's Policy on additional costs incurred by students on undergraduate and postgraduate taught programmes (PDF document, 91KB).

We offer a number of postgraduate taught scholarships and awards to outstanding UK and international students each year.

The University of Manchester is committed to widening participation in master's study, and allocates £300,000 in funding each year. Our Manchester Master's Bursaries are aimed at widening access to master's courses by removing barriers to postgraduate education for students from underrepresented groups.

We also welcome the best and brightest international students each year and reward excellence with a number of merit-based scholarships. See our range of master’s scholarships for international students .

And, if you have completed an undergraduate degree at The University of Manchester, or are currently in your final year of an undergraduate degree with us, you may be eligible for a discount of 10% on tuition fees if you choose to study on a taught postgraduate course here. Find out if you're eligible and how to apply .

For more information on master's tuition fees and studying costs, visit the University of Manchester funding for master's courses website to help you plan your finances.

This unit deals with the renewable energy systems which directly exploit the solar radiation received by the earth viz. solar photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal technologies. Solar PV devices are broadly divided into three types: type I - crystalline semiconductor based cells (including concentrator cells); type II - devices based on large area, low cost thin films and type III - structures which aim to exploit fundamental physics in order to overcome the various energy loss mechanisms suffered in type I and type II devices. PV devices yield electrical energy directly whereas solar thermal technologies involve the direct absorption of sunlight and its conversion to heat or for electrical power generation. The unit describes the fundamental mechanisms of solar energy conversion in solar cells, identifying the material and device properties that lead to solar absorption and charge generation/separation for electrical energy generation. This establishes the key criteria for cell design and improvement of power conversion efficiency. Underpinning all of these device structures is the need to improve efficiency whilst reducing cost and so the routes to extracting optimal power and the factors which limit current PV cell efficiencies are covered. The optical and thermal parameters for solar thermal technologies are considered and the approaches for generating electrical power this way are reviewed. The exploitation of these renewable energy systems in both large scale power plants and in the urban, built infrastructure is considered.

The unit aims to: Provide understanding of the science and engineering issues related to the design and development of renewable energy devices and systems for generating electricity from solar resources.

On successful completion of the course, a student will be able to:

ILO 1: Describe and quantify the solar energy resource available for electricity generation using both PV and solar thermal systems.

ILO 2: Describe the fundamental material and device characteristics which enable all PV cells to convert solar energy into electrical energy.

ILO 3: Describe the manufacturing and processing issues which impact upon the final performance and durability of PV cells.

ILO 4: Describe the fundamental properties and design characteristics of Concentrated Solar (thermal) Power (CSP) plants.

ILO 5: Apply scientific and mathematical analysis to the design and optimisation of materials and devices for PV and solar thermal systems.

ILO 6: Conduct laboratory experiments to realise a solar cell and measure its electrical output characteristics to determine the power conversion efficiency.

Coursework 1: Online multiple choice quiz (10%)

Duration: 1 hour

Coursework 2: Individual Report (10%)

15 pages (max)

Coursework feedback is provided online in Blackboard

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• Solar energy conversion: the solar cell by Neville, Richard C, Elsevier, 1995. 
• Energy conversion by Goswami, D. Yogi.; Kreith, Frank, Taylor & Francis, 2008.
• Renewable energy : power for a sustainable future by Peake, Stephen, Oxford University Press in association with the Open University, 2018.
• Photovoltaic solar energy conversion by Bauer, Gottfried H., Springer, 2015.
• A Comprehensive Guide to Solar Energy Systems: With Special Focus on Photovoltaic Systems by Letcher, T. M.; Fthenakis, Vasilis M., Academic Press An imprint of Elsevier, 2018.