How Energy Clubbers spent their energy summer....

A number of MIT Energy Club members spent their summers doing interesting work in the energy industry. Since the poor PhD students continued to work in the lab all summer, most of the interesting stories come from the Sloan side! :)

PLEASE ADD YOUR OWN SUMMER ENERGY EXPERIENCES IN THE COMMENTS FIELD!

THE POWER SECTOR:

Scott Roberts, 2nd year MBA student and active Club member, worked this summer at Burlington, MA-based international independent power provider Intergen, a company with 9 power plants and over 5GW of power plant equity. Scott worked in their corporate finance group on quantifying the financial impact of several macro risks on their power plant portfolio. He helped design and build a risk analysis tool using power plant financial models and Monte Carlo simulation..... Justin Ashton, Energy Club Industry Relations Chair, and Matt Albrecht, Energy Club EnergyNight Co-Chair (both 2nd year Sloan MBA students) took Boston's Citizens Energy by storm this summer, working alongside everyone's favorite MIT Energy alum and Citizens' Director of Alternative Energy, Tod Hynes...... James Schwartz, MIT Energy Club Co-President and Managing Director of this year's MIT Energy Conference, spent the summer in CT working at GE Energy Financial Services on energy project development alongside prominent MIT TPP alum Steve Taub.... Jason Roeder, 2nd year MBA student, MIT Energy Club Treasurer, and MIT Energy Conference Co-Director this year, spent the summer at recently public Boston-based EnerNOC (joining fellow alumni MIT energy club members Tom Atkinson and Shaheer Hussam). Jason was definitely impressed by his experience at EnerNOC.

From Jason's mouth:
"The demand response product that EnerNOC has pioneered is quite nuanced in its relation to electricity economics, regulatory regimes, and broader energy efficiency and smart grid applications. I was very impressed with the number of moving pieces in the organization - software engineering, field operations, network operations, power market analytics, sales force, etc. Based on my summer experience, it seems likely that demand response will have a permanent place in the utility/power market design quiver. The relatively small (~5%) reductions in demand that DR provides over the last ~1% of the load duration curve (87 out of 8760 hrs/yr) leads to big $$$ benefits for the market as a whole."

THE SOLAR SECTOR:

David Levy, 2nd year Sloan MBA student, spent the summer cutting his solar business teeth at thin film solar startup HelioVolt based in Texas..... Jacob Levy, a Sloan MBA student as well as David's twin brother (not really), spent the summer working at Evergreen Solar in Marlboro, MA, reporting to MIT energy alum (Sloan '76) Mark Farber, VP of Marketing & Business Development. Jacob also played a key role along with MIT Energy Conference co-founder and Evergreen employee Nol Browne this summer in bringing together various New England solar stakeholders (gov't, university, investment, etc) to work to expand solar activity in the region..... Viara Nedeva, 2nd Year MBA student, also had a solar summer, but on the other side of the world from David and Jacob, at BP Solar in Sydney, Australia. (Note: I am jealous of her, but not of David and Jacob) There she developed financial models to evaluate the economic feasibility of potential solar energy projects in East Asia.

THE GOVERNMENT SECTOR:

Matt Zedler, recent Mech Eng BS alum and former Energy Club Tours Chair, diverted from his science and technology background this summer to work on policy with the majority side of the
Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee in Washington, DC.

From Matt's mouth:
"During a three-month fellowship, I had the chance to see the legislative process up close and personal, as well as the opportunity to meet several prominent energy advisors and policy makers. The first week of the summer placement coincided with the bringing of the Energy Savings Act of 2007 to the Senate floor. The rest of the summer involved conferences between the House and Senate on the America COMPETES bill, focused on revitalizing America's science and engineering education given the "threat" of other nations' successes. Right before the August recess, President Bush signed the bill into law, causing a celebration among the committee staff. I also spent a large part of the summer researching models for funding large-scale energy research, writing a white paper comparing several different models. The experience was both rewarding and frustrating as much of the staff's time is spent putting out short-term fires and running from one briefing or hearing to another. Working on policy showed me how the legislative process requires inputs from people with technical background, and it also proved how slow the progress of legislation can be. While I will not be returning the Hill anytime soon, the experience was a valuable and instructive one for me."

THE MIT ENERGY CONFERENCE SECTOR:

James Schwartz, Daniel Enderton, Andy Peterson, Justin Ashton , Jason Roeder, and Steve Peterson (the Co-Directors of the 2008 MIT Energy Conference) spent the whole summer scheming about the conference at the Muddy Charles Pub.....