Novia Nordic tour 2016

We landed last night Thursday in Denmark. What a grand entrance with a bridge that scares the life out you as it looks like the road ends in the sea, well, it does but turns into an underground water tunnel…what workmanship!!! Had to borrow a picture on internet to show what we mean by GRAND ENTRANCE!!

The urge to see the new city, as we collect experience and memories, made us scatter in different directions exploring  Copenhagen by night. Some of us even getting lost going round and round for hours failing to locate the hotel, but at least, we had one more day to redeem ourselves.

The day started on a busy note with an hour and half drive to Kalundborg for our first company visit scheduled for 09:00. Since breakfast was from 07:15 and we had planned to leave by 07:30 so we changed it to 07:45. We made it to Kalundborg on time but we didn’t enjoy our breakfast.

In Kalundborg, we visited the Symbiosis Center, started with a guided tour of the industries that are in the symbiosis, a presentation and tour of the wastewater treatment plant. Lots questions were asked, good to see what we have done in school in 3D (in reality). Thank you Kalundborg but now we move on to our last appointment on this tour.

Biofos was our last stop.Energy storage is what we needed to hear ( after all the energy production systems we have heard about) and see in action as it is still a big challenge in the world of energy. The P-2-G (power to gas) Biocat project showcases energy storage by transforming excess electrical energy produced into natural gas and to be stored in the gas grid. That was a grand finale, the journey has been worth it.

SO TECHNICALLY SPEAKING, WE HAVE ACCOMPLISHED OUR MISSION, getting home is part of the mission but on a personal level. Tomorrow is another travelling day and goodbyes were said on the bus as a journey that started with 19 people will end with 13 coming back to Vaasa, the others go to start their own energy stories. Good luck to us all, we have done well.

WE ARE PROUD OF OURSELVES and hope you our reader who has followed our journey is proud of us too. Thank you for reading.

Happy Reading and look out for our photo gallery, company reviews and personal experience coming soon.

 

Thursday

From our last update, we woke up in Lysekil to a rainy day, after a dramatic night with one of our colleagues having a toothache. Thank goodness, the crazy prescriptions he got but at least we know that despite being engineers we are still humourous humans!!!

First stop for that day was Sea Twirls, this was mostly mechanical and they drew us in their world of offshore floating wind turbines. They have a prototype of which some of our colleagues were taken on a small raft to take a closer look. This was good as the company has only 5 employees, so that we also learn that you don’t have to be in a huge group to be great,  you just need to have an idea and guts to pull it through. More will be in the company review.

After Sea Twirls, we headed straight to Ringhals, two and half hours drive where we were to learn more about Nuclear power generation, scary cool stuff. We were treated to their exhibition area where we explored around on our own at our pace, a presentation followed and then a tour of the plant. And if you are wondering, ” No, they didn’t show us any uranium and no we didn’t come back with any radiation.” That wrapped up Sweden for us.Thank you and goodbye Sweden. Let us see what Denmark has to offer……..

 

The plans for the two remaining visit days are the following ones:

Thursday:

• 8:00 GU Ventures.
• 13:00 Ringhals Nuclear power plant.

Friday:

• 9:00 Kalundborg Symbiosis Center.
• 14:00 P2G-BioCat project.

On Saturday we leave Copenhagen, except for three Spanish colleagues that are going back home and one Finnish colleague who is going to Greece for his summer job.

We will try to have some updated in between those days. Look out for our photo Gallery and company review coming soon.

First apologies to you our followers for our silence. We had internet problems, fatigue and tourist fever!!

Like we said, the kick off was Monday 03:00am. The journey went well though everybody was so sleepy and it was so quiet in our big bus. We had two company visits on that day in Helsinki.

1. First up was ABB where we had a very lively presentation on energy challenges of today and solutions for the future rounding it off with a tour of the factory. You should have seen the size of those motors!!!!!!!
2. The last stop in Helsinki was ST1 where we had a good discussion on biofuels. We didn’t have a tour of their factory but the presentation was so good.

After we headed to Turku for the ferry. We had big plans for the ferry but the fatigue of waking up before dawn caught up with us, we don’t even know who went to bed first, we just know that we didn’t see much of each other except our cabin-mates.

Tuesday

Landed in Stockholm around 6 and were so hungry because the prices on the ferry didn’t suit our Student pockets!!! Attacked McDonald’s on our way to Trosa (Sweden) where we had to visit Stakraft district heating plant. The presentation and tour of the plant was very informative, it is very encouraging to see what we have been doing in school in practice, we are now assured that we have a place in industry.

The visit ended at 11:00am and we decided to head straight to Oslo because we wanted to see Oslo before dark. Our initial plan was to spend that free afternoon in Stockholm but Oslo was more tempting.

Arrived in Oslo around 19:00 and checked in at PS Hotell a couple of kilometres from the city centre and planned to take a group photo in the t-shirts that Vasa city had sponsored and were to meet 30minutes after check-in but the girls took so long in to get ready, so the boys went sight-seeing before dark and the girls did too with a few boys that remained at the hotel. So the photo-shot didn’t happen, was postponed to breakfast before departure.

Wednesday

Checked out and finally had our group photo in the Vasa t-shirts and it was the last time we were a full group as our Chinese colleagues were heading back to Finland and leave for China on this Friday.

Two company visits in the beautiful city of Oslo;

1. Klemetsrud Waste-to-Energy: Even though we have Stormossen and Westenergy in Vasa, we had to see what others we in the region are doing. True, they use some technologies that we haven´t seen in Vasa and do certain things differently that we thought the Vasa plants performed better, so in the end it is what Works for you, the goal is still the same. Good presentation and tour we must add and very friendly personnel.

And then we were 17!! We said good bye to our Chinese friends and dropped them and the train station and headed for some sight-seeing in Vigeland Park before our afternoon appointment. We really know how to mix business with pleasure.

2. BW Maritime welcomed us with an informative presentation on cargo ships and energy management, after that presentations, we are almost experts in that!!!! No tour but still worth it and that was our last stop in Oslo. Such a beautiful city with warm welcoming people!!

We headed straight to Sweden after because we wanted to eat on the Swedish side, not because we don´t trust Norwegian chefs but we intended to have a two-in one meal…lunch & supper.

Landed in Lysekil before sunset and wow, what a sight!!. One of our colleagues called it a “mini Oslo”, so breathe-takings. Walked around to see it more, didn’t meet much locals, maybe they sleep early in Lysekil. Good night small beautiful Lysekil.

We intend to have a photo gallery so that you can feast your eyes and see what we saw. We promise to have it done as soon as possible.

The company reviews are also coming up, keep following us and half way through our tour, we say, “so far so good!”.

25.04.2016

It’s 3 am in the morney and the trip just started!!!!!

We are traveling to the first stop in the journey, Helsinki.

Every night we will post a summary of each visit done during the day, if the internet allows us to do it!!!

19.04.2016

Monday afternoon (18.4)  was all joy for the group as the long-awaited news was delivered, “WE HAVE THE MONEY FOR THE TRIP”, our joy was short-lived, as the realization hit that we miscounted the number of people receiving the Bertell fund (the major fund for this project), we counted one person more than the actual number!!!!!  We couldn’t get to sleep like babies!!!

We did what engineers do best, PROBLEM SOLVING. An emergency meeting was held so as to find a way out regarding shortage of 400 euros. Team spirit kicked in and we agreed to contribute from our own pockets and also got a donation of 100e from a private firm.YES! WE ARE GOING ON OUR TRIP AND WE KEEP OUR FINGERS CROSSED THAT NOTHING ROCKS OUR BOAT TILL WE COME BACK.

Today the 18th of April 2016, we had the last meeting before leaving for the trip. Everyone was excited about the meeting because next Monday we are leaving.!!!!

We are expecting the last confirmation from the companies just as a reminder and telling them WE ARE GOING TO BE THERE!!!!!!

Just uploaded a full explanation on the tour site, explaining the main aim and different teams the project is divided into and with each team members.

This is the first entry to our blog, today we have the first meeting to decide the different categories of the blog and which is the best way to work on it