The 2022 Norwegian Research School in Renewable Energy (NorRen) took place at Holmen Fjordhotell in Asker from 13-17 of June. The summer school was organized by UiO:Energy and the research center MoZEES in collaboration with the with NTNU and NTRANS. The program was designed to be both interdisciplinary and interactive, with a mixture of expert talks, lectures and group work focusing on various aspects of sustainable transport.
The school gathered PhD students from UiO, NTNU, Arctic University of Norway, Nord University and Chalmers for a week-long program. This year the summer school focused on sustainable transport with lectures covering topics such as hydrogen, sustainable batteries, maritime freight, heavy duty vehicles and geopolitical questions related to sustainable transport.
These scientific topics were presented by a mix of lecturers from UiO, NTNU, Technical University of Munich, Uppsala University, IFE and SINTEF.
Involvement of stakeholders and site visits
Both private companies and the government sector were also invited to share their views on sustainable transport - and to highlight both possibilities and challenges. Wilhelmsen/Massterly and SCANIA gave very interesting and inspiring lectures covering topics related the transitions to sustainable transport systems within shipping and heavy-duty vehicles. Bærum Municipality and the Norwegian road tax administration gave the participants their view from both both local and national perspectives.
In the middle of the week the students went to several site-visits. Unibuss, a public transport operator in Oslo, organized a site visit to their infrastructure facilities at Alnabru, Stubberud and Furubakken. Unibuss also presented key learnings from the electrification of their bus fleet.
Norled, one of Norway's largest ferry and express boat operators invited the participants on board on one of the ferries operating between Oslo and Nesodden. Norled shared their key learnings from the electrification of the ferries operating in the Oslo Fjord
Engaged students
The students themselves played a central role throughout the week. On the first day they each presented their PhD research with a poster and a short pitch, effectively getting to know all the other participants. During the week they worked in groups on an interdisciplinary assignment and presented their findings on the last day of the school. There were also lots of questions and discussions in conjunction with the various talks, making it a highly interactive experience.
UiO:Energy would like to thank all lecturers and students for making the NorRen summer school of 2022 an interesting and highly enjoyable week!