TL;DR - I traveled abroad for the first time and was inspired to do more for myself in and outside the program.

Graduate school year one is finished. I'm considerably more confident as a professional, but I'm not sure how much of that the program is fostering, and how much I've spent refining my own skills. See, there is always a part of schooling that leaves content out of your control, and to make the best of it you must decide to either supplement your current workload, or spend your time on other things. In these courses I found that the content differed in depth than what I expected, so I shaped some of the content and found extracurricular ways of upskilling. Although I made the most of it, I believe this is a natural part of life that comes down to imperfect systems that seek to accomodate most. As a software engineer, but also an energy professional, I have a niche skillset that has specific needs, and specific blocks in which to build on. As I approach this upcoming year I'll spend more time away from the program and more time on where the future is leading me: the intersection of software and the environment.

Modern Computer Systems

This class was initially an exciting opportunity to learn about a breadth of different modern systems. Taught by Joseph Israelivitz, it progressed into a focused effort around a single technical topic, and required a deep understanding of it's role in modern systems.

Our final project was an extension on published computing research focused on creating more efficienct datacenter task scheduling. Our solution in the paper takes into account both the carbon price of the grid mix when allocating server compute time, and priority scheduling for companies with strict financial constraints. While many projects discuss the importance of carbon pricing, our project allows flexibility that many companies realistically seek out, which is: How can we choose the greenest way of computing these tasks, while suffering the least in financial penalties? You're encouraged to read the paper below.

Global Intensive - Sustainable Cities

William Shutkin was the enigmatic proveyor of sustainable urban design and development. The course was a whirlwind of global sustainability initiatives that coeleced into a high level picture of where we are compared to our foreign counterparts. The short of it is: we can do better.

The class took place in both a formal classroom setting, and abroad. After we finished our student presentations covering different countries' sustainability initiatives, we packed our things and skipped across the pond to Coppenhagen and Denmark. We assessed the energy, urban, structural, and social design of their cities and municiple systems to compare and gain perspective on what is and could be. Please take a look at our presentation on Singapore, and keep a look out for images and content in other archives around the rest of the trip.

Renewable Energy Development and Finance

This course was instructed by Adam Knoff, an intelligent man of industry that chooses to share some of his development experience as an adjunct faculty member. This was my favorite course of the semester, and it was balanced in both content and rigor.

I learned much in the way of developing RE projects, and much of that was focused on solar. Putting together a Pro Forma, and several other proposals to illustrate an understanding of project development was excellent exposure to applied project economics. Take a look below at our final presentation and potential development site that focused on rooftop solar and finances that didn't rely on solar credits, just great economics.

Capstone Innovation Lab 2

Capstone is a course that seeks to enrich professional growth inside the program, and provide an industry partner with goals that graduate students can contribue to. Our project is an effort to support OneEnergy in procuring and develpoing Battery Energy Storage Systems (BESS) in both Colorado and Washington. Our research over the summer consisted of developing databases of policy and utility information, market anlysis and value propositions for BESS, in parallel with community engagement interviews, events, and research.

I led a sizable portion of the teams community engagement efforts, and although we put together some compelling guidance for OneEnergy, much of that information is proprietary. Instead, please take a look at the public facing poster we designed that discusses our summer efforts and deliverables. It was awesome working with the team on this, and I think we provided a lot of value to OneEnergy through our research.