Emily Browning’s Summer Abroad

ACEP intern Emily Browning participated in the California-Berlin Exchange and Research summer school in Berlin, Germany, Aug. 5-16.

The program invited 20 graduate students in various fields studying renewable energy. Half were U.S. students and half were students in Germany. The first week of the summer school consisted of workshops on various topics, including open source and open software, geographic information system software, and energy demand with respect to willingness to pay. The students also took a field trip to Feldheim, an energy self-sufficient town, where they visited solar and wind farms and a biogas plant.

The second week of the program gave the students the opportunity to work on a paper or startup company idea. To get the students inspired, they took a field trip to a local startup, SolarWorX
. The SolarWorX CEO chatted with the group about his company and answered questions about starting it. Emily’s group’s topic was “The Impact of Policy on Renewable Energy Development in the Caribbean Island States.” Each group was assigned an advisor. At the end of the week, groups presented the progress made on their topics, along with their plans for continuing the project. Several guest judges ranked the presentations in categories. Emily’s group was selected as the overall winner. The members hope to stay in touch and further develop this topic.

 

ACEP intern Emily Browning, third from left, was a member of the winning group in a project competition during a summer program in Berlin, Germany. Her team received solar lights and a copy of “Doughnut Economics.” Also pictured, from left, are Philipp Blechinger, project advisor, of the Reiner Lemoine Institute; Manasa Muralidharan, of the University of California, San Diego; Jess Kersey, of  UC Berkeley; and Christian von Hirschhausen, professor at the Technical University of Berlin.