My dissertation was about the building and optimally controlling an energy management system. I don't know how much you know about electronics, but there was a triple active bridge (a device which enables you to force energy in towards an output point) at the heart of the system, a solar panel as a source, battery as buffer and a fridge as the sink. This had to be controlled optimally, but I spend a great deal of time on figuring out what optimal meant in this context. Long live engineering.

If you are looking at something in information science, you might want to consider Utrecht University. It is the second largest university in the Netherlands. Leiden is also quite good I hear (top university here according to Elsevier). If you are looking for a more technical/low level approach you can also look at Eindhoven or Delft. Both have technical universities and thus focus more on the low level stuff. Be warned though, in Delft the people from building engineering burned down their own building a while ago :P

10.000 pound is a LOT. And I'm complaining about 3.500 euro...