NTNU originates from the Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) established in 1910, and through different mergers it is currently Norway’s largest university. The main campus is in Trondheim in the middle part of Norway, and campus is shared together with the research organization SINTEF. NTNU is organized in nine faculties and faculty level groups and 55 departments. The annual budget is approx 1€B, of which close to 0,2 €B is from external sources. The university employs 7400 FTEs, has more than 42000 students and produces close to 400 doctoral degrees annually. NTNU has a strong profile in Science and Technology, and 75 per cent of Norway’s master candidates in technology graduates from NTNU. The university also offers a range of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral programmes in humanities, social sciences, economics, medicine, health sciences, educational sciences, architecture, entrepreneurship and aesthetic disciplines, and has professional degree programmes in medicine, psychology, architecture, the fine arts, music, and teacher education, in addition to technology. Dozens of international student exchange programmes and more than 300 cooperative or exchange agreements with 60 universities worldwide. NTNU has 126 signed projects through H2020 (February 2019).
The Dept. of Energy and Process Engineering is one of the largest departments at the Faculty of Engineering, which is the largest faculty at the university. It is divided into four research groups:
- Industrial Ecology programme
- Process and Power
- Sustainable Energy Systems
- Thermo Fluids
Hydropower research is a part of the research group ‘Process and Power’, and the research is performed at the Waterpower Laboratory, one of the few independent laboratories on hydraulic turbines in the world. This laboratory is the location of the National Research center on Hydropower, HydroCen. This center facilitates cross disciplinary research on Hydropower in all aspects of the value chain.
The Waterpower laboratory is also the location for the project coordination of the H2020 project HydroFlex, where 16 partners from all over Europe form the consortium. in 2018, an initiative by personnel at the Waterpower laboratory was made to establish a joint programme (JP) for hydropower within the European Energy Research Alliance (EERA), and in 2019 this was launched. This JP is coordinated by NTNU by personnel at the Waterpower laboratory.
The education at the Waterpower Laboratory is based on research, and approximately 15 master candidates are graduated each year submitting theses on research linked to the ongoing research projects.
Role in the Project
NTNU will be the leader of WP2 working on the design of the mechanical components. Furthermore, a researcher will be employed for 36 PMs, specifically working on the Ronamic technology, and scalability and cost of the full scale prototypes.