On Wednesday, February 21st, Project 4.6 participants Dr. James Gaede (post-doctoral fellow) and Dr. Ian Rowlands (principal investigator) travelled, with others, to Shawinigan, Quebec to participate in the NEST Network 2018 Winter School.
In addition to the Network’s annual meeting (held in June every year in Toronto, Ontario), the Winter School provides an opportunity for smaller groups of Network researchers to come together to share results, to explore potential joint projects, and to build further the collaborative nature of the Network.
Theme 4 (‘Economics and Policy’) held its first Winter School in Waterloo, Ontario in February 2017. This year’s Winter School not only brought together Theme 1 (‘Energy Storage Technologies’) and Theme 4, but also engaged fully project partner, Hydro Québec.
Winter School participants, Shawinigan, Quebec
The first full day of the Winter School was devoted to an update from the 12 projects that, collectively, constitute Themes 1 and 4. The quality of the ‘HQP’ being developed by the Network was fully on display, as graduate students and post-doctoral fellows clearly and concisely reported upon the achievements of their respective projects to date. For Project 4.6, Dr. Gaede provided a broad overview, while also highlighting those elements that he has led.
Dr. James Gaede provides an update on Project 4.6 at the Winter School, Shawinigan, Quebec
A visit to Hydro Québec’s Energy Technologies Laboratory (LTE) took place on the second full day of the Winter School. Presentations on research into a range of energy use technologies were delivered by Hydro Québec researchers; a tour of the on-site research facilities also took place.
LTE, Hydro Québec, Shawinigan, Quebec
On Friday, February 23rd at 3:30pm, the Network’s Winter School participants got on the bus to head back to Montreal (and from there, on to their respective homes). They left with new information, new ideas, and no doubt new inspiration about how they could develop further their own projects within the Network – not only working individually, but also collectively with other Network researchers and partners.
And, finally, a big thanks to all whose efforts helped to make this Winter School the success that it was – in particular, on the NEST side, Dr. Juan Gomez-Herrera and Dr. Ye Hua; and on the Hydro Québec side, Dr. Jocelyn Millette and his team.