Energy students tackle industry problems

Assign an energy intern to gain new knowledge and attract the best talents. This autumn, a record number of 50 students are venturing out of the classroom to use what they have learned at the University of Bergen.

What is special about this year, is that there are far more students than earlier due to the growing interest in the energy sector and the transition to renewable energy sources. This is why UiB are looking for more companies for their internship program.

Supporting the energy transition

Today there is a major shift to renewable energy sources, and the integrated master (sivilingeniør) program in energy is more popular than ever. Moreover, geopolitics have made energy security a top priority issue globally, and we can expect this study program to expand the next years.

The practice period is performed in combination with other subjects in the 3'rd semester. The students are working 1-2 days per week in the company until they have achieved the mandatory 200-hours.

If your company would like to become a host company for an internship students from the energy program, please contact Niklas Hellum (niklas.hellum@uib.no) within 15 August, or call (+47) 55 58 89 82 for more information.

Win-win for the industry and the students

Every year we perform a survey among the companies that have students. The feedback this year was overall very good, and as one company put it when we asked how it was to have students working for them:

“We are very pleased to have had the students with us. We believe it is a win-win situation. One of the points in our strategy is to work closely with universities and colleges to be up to date on education and competence. In the past we have had great success with Master's assignments that have been done with us as supervisors based on agreed topics, but this is the first time we have students working with us in such a program.”

Positive experience

For the first time during their civil engineering degree the UiB students get to put theory into practice in some of the most renowned companies in Norway as part of their one- semester internship.

Sondre Merkesvik and Ine Si Stalheim are two of the students that completed the required 200-hours of internship.

Sondre worked at NORCE, where he was using software to model carbon and hydrogen storage capabilities. Ine was working at OneSubsea (a Schlumberger company) together with two fellow students. They worked on a market analysis on wind turbines and carbon capture and storage (CCS) as well as looking at how knowledge from previous projects can be transferred to solve new challenges.

As part of the internship the students writes in a blog about their internship experience.

In their blogs Sondre and Ine tell in detail what they have worked with during their internship.

– I have tested MRST's reservoir simulation tool in conjunction with CO2 well-injection, expanded my knowledge of simulation tools and assisted in simulations either with programming or with new views. I have also been looking at the practical use of experimental data to test the simulation tools, Sondre wrote in his blog.

In Ines blog we can learn how she and her fellow students worked to solve challenges concerning turbines:

– One of our tasks was to analyze the market for turbines and make calculations in connection with a newly started project. After doing a series of web searches, many hours of calculations, and a lot of mapping, we completed the task of creating a summary report. This was an educational process, and it is extra fun that the work we did will be used by the company, explains Ine.

Apart from solving problems for the company, Ine and her fellow student also had the opportunity to visit OneSubseas’ test facilities at Horsøy, an experience they all got a lot of new insights from.

In their blogs they explain what it is like being part of a professional work environment for the first time.

– In the beginning, the tasks were challenging, and I had a very steep learning curve. Now that I have got more into the tasks and what it is like to work in Onesubsea, I notice that everything feels much more manageable. It is motivating to experience that I understand more and that I understand what the other employees are talking about, writes Ine.

Contact at UiB: Niklas Hellum, 55 58 89 82, niklas.hellum@uib.no