It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since I started my graduate placement with the Energy and Low Carbon team at Highlands and Islands Enterprise. The placement has been a fantastic introduction to the energy industry of the Highlands and Islands, and throughout the year I have been lucky enough to have travelled around the region and seen first hand the breadth of the energy activity in the region, from the innovative wave and tidal energy devices being tested in Orkney at the world leading European Marine Energy Centre, to the redeveloped Nigg Energy Park in Invergordon and in the West the Arnish fabrication yard near Stornoway, to name a few.
I have been privileged to have been able to be directly involved in the development of Scotland’s burgeoning marine energy industry through my involvement with the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Leadership Forum. During this past year I have been working with key stakeholders in the industry represented on the Leadership Forum to work on the development of the industry. In particular I have been lucky to have had a close working relationship with colleagues at The Crown Estate. I have been attending their Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters Developers Forum and hearing first hand from the developers the progress of their device development and the challenges they are working to overcome to reach the goal of commercial deployment of devices in the Pentland Firth and Orkney Waters. I also owe a thank you to The Crown Estate for jointly funding my post along with HIE and in doing so making my placement with the Energy team possible.
Along with my work on marine renewables, I have also been working on PR and marketing within the Energy team to promote the energy industry of the Highlands and Islands, which involved maintaining and developing the HI-energy website, blog, and social media (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube), and working with colleagues on planning the team’s conference and events attendance, and I also contributed to the delivery of the Big Green Challenge schools competition – an annual competition for secondary school pupils in the Highlands and Islands to debate the issues around renewables, culminating in a grand final debate held in the Scottish Parliament. I also worked on the production of advertising materials, including brochures and factsheets, and a new wall advert in Inverness airport highlighting the strengths of renewables in the Highlands and Islands.
I have been able to attend many industry events including the Scottish Renewables Marine Conference held in Inverness, a key conference for the wave and tidal industry, and the All Energy conference in Aberdeen, the biggest renewables conference in the UK. Meeting those working in the industry, as well as working with colleagues in the Energy team, has allowed me to gain a lot of knowledge and invaluable experience of the renewables industry of the Highlands and Islands over the past year, which I’m very grateful to have had the opportunity to acquire through this placement, and I can certainly say from what I’ve seen that this industry has a bright future in the Highlands and Islands, and one that is creating opportunities for graduates like myself to return to work in the region after going away to university, which I think is a great thing.