Design and monitoring of a micro-cogeneration system: A wide practice proposed for engineering education.

Learning by doing is essential in engineering education, along with topics such as systems automation and control and energy efficiency. This article presents work including all of these different topics. A micro-cogeneration facility located at the University of Vigo is studied. The experimental plant is automated after detecting the most important variables and actuations. A system responsible for the control, supervision, and monitoring of the system was developed using the programming software LabVIEW. All of these processes are explained in depth here. Finally, a complete practice experience is proposed for the next course of the Master of Thermal Engineering programme taught at the University of Vigo. Different tasks are included: the study of the operating principle of a micro-cogeneration system, the analysis of measurement devices and actuators for the automation of an experimental facility, LabVIEW programming, and interaction with the integrated system. The effectiveness of the proposed methodology will be evaluated through a five-point Likert-type scale survey. (C) 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.