Day to day duties of an Energy Engineer?

[VisionKing]

Hi,

I am currently an Environmental Engineer and have over 8 years experience in the consulting field. But I have come to a point where I realize I am not too thrilled anymore to clean up my clients mess or to keep them barely in compliance with environmental laws. I prefer to be on the front end, the prevention side of environmental business.

So I have been looking in to getting a Masters in Sustainable Energy Engineering. Anyway, my question is what exactly does an energy engineers do? Just like any engineer the duties may be broad but I am just curious to know on the day to day level.

In general I guess I can see them as performing energy audits, analyzing systems in order to find ways to reduce energy use and implement the findings into the system.

 

[dcasto]

Well, if you don't have thermaldynamics, transport phenomena, fluids, unit operations, you won't get far. Once you take these classes, you'll know what an energy engineer does.

A MS in sustainable engineering sounds like a renamed MBA for the green movement

 

[mauricestoker]

Green and energy are not the same thing. I've spent the last two weeks updating guide specifications for energy requirements, I did not touch any environmentally preferred, bio-based or specific recycling requirements.

There is a large difference between "green" and energy concepts, and different energy engineers do different tasks (though bottom line is invariably life cycle economics versus upfront cost). I've been a mechanical for 25 years, so I generally tend to stick to ME issues.

 

[FOURe]

Hi there:

I would just add to the previous posts that good knowledge of thermodynamics and energy conversion is required and that being an energy engineer could vary when it comes to the job duties.

The broader the candidate's background, the easier it gets to handle the specific job requirements ...

Good Luck!

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