17 SDG 7 Affordable and Clean Energy – Alener Solar

Group Reflection

The company that our team has chosen is ALENER. Based in Seville, Spain, ALENER is an innovative engineering consultancy whose main focus is sustainability. They do this by engaging in diverse engineering projects. While their headquarters are rooted in Seville, their impact resonates globally, aiming to instill a widespread adoption of sustainability as a way of life. Regarding the STG´s, the projects that they carry out mainly address SDG number 7 (affordable and clean energy) and SDG number 13 (climate action).

Their commitment to sustainability materializes through projects such as the installation of LED lighting, boasting a staggering 70% reduction in pollution compared to conventional lighting methods. One of the LED lighting projects that ALENER showed this off the most was the Grotto of Wonders. Overcoming the challenges of depth and environmental factors to successfully integrate LED lighting showcases the good engineering work of the company. The other projects they take on include energy efficiency, generation, green hydrogen, engineering, and sustainable mobility. However, the project that most stands out to us due to its outstanding innovation is the hydrogen plant in Seville’s port. With a budget of 26.4 million, the plant employs a 10 MW electrolyser and a 10 MW photovoltaic system, aiming to produce renewable hydrogen. This renewable source is positioned to replace environmentally harmful fossil fuels like natural gas, offering a sustainable, pollution-free alternative with diverse applications across homes and public transportation.

We learned many things taking on this interesting assignment together and working with ALENER which we are excited to share our reflection on.

Setting up the interview with the CEO of ALENER proved to be a challenging yet ultimately rewarding process. The initial request for an interview was met with enthusiasm. However, due to the company’s hectic schedule tied to a major project, the interview had to be rescheduled multiple times over a span of two to three weeks. While the delays tested our patience, they also offered insights into the dynamic and demanding nature of the renewable energy sector. Finally, securing the interview after the persistent efforts reflected both the CEO’s professionalism and the company’s dedication to ongoing projects. The interview went down smoothly, and the CEO was very kind providing some really interesting information about the company which was very useful for our project.

This experience significantly enhanced our understanding of the intricate workings within the renewable energy sector. While the process of coordinating the interview posed some challenges, the valuable insights gained rendered the effort worthwhile. Overall, the engagement offered a unique and informative perspective on the operational dynamics of ALENER and the broader renewable energy industry. We were surprised with how easy AIM2Flourish was to navigate for our assignment, the site provides a great template for creating a story and the steps were straightforward. It was easy for us to divide up each question in the story template to create our story and put everything together. Even looking for different inspiration while creating your story is simple as it was quite easy to browse other stories and even filter based on things such as location.

The only issues we had with AIM2Flourish were small and can be easy fixes on their end. The main thing we did not like about using AIM2Flourish was the time limit when creating a story. Because of this we preferred typing out our answers not on the website but on other software, we did not want to worry about having to save our progress and restarting the session every so often. Another small nitpick we had was how it was difficult to work ahead on the story. If you wanted to go to the next page to work on a different part of the story all boxes needed to be filled to go to the next page. Although, there is a simple workaround of just filling the blank box with a single character to skip to the next page it would be more convenient to flip between pages without having to do so. The pros of working on AIM2Flourish definitely outweighed the cons for us and we appreciate the education it provided and the convenience it provided us to publish our story.

Overall, our group worked extremely well together, we did however face some challenges along the way during this group project. One challenge we faced was getting into contact with the company we interviewed ALENER, they started answering right away initially but when it came time to actually doing the interview it took us more time as noted previously then we may have liked. This is because ALENER was working on a big project at the time our interview was supposed to be conducted. This challenge shows that sometimes it is hard to engage other companies in a project that may not be as important to said company as it is to the interviewers, but once we had the interview our group worked hard to make sure to submit the next step on time. Another challenge we face as a group was meeting times, within the time zones. Our group struggled with finding appropriate times to meet within everyone’s schedule, as well as working around different time zones. As a group we tried to accommodate everyone’s schedule as well as meet at an appropriate time for everyone, however sometimes we would have miscommunications and cancellations at the last minute leading us to a few reschedules throughout the process. With this in mind though all 6 of us maintained attendance every week and still made it work. At first, when receiving a new assignment, it was hard dividing up the work but the more we got to know each other and work together the better we got at dividing work loads efficiently. Overall, our group overcame challenges well and did not let it affect our work.

We have learned a lot in terms of green energy and sustainability. For how small ALENER is a company compared to many other giants the knowledge and experience they hold in the field is invaluable, and we were grateful to learn from them. We also learned how challenging working on a project internationally can be especially as we are working with different languages, culture, educational practices, and time zones as well. Furthermore, our group was happy with the cooperation we had as each member was valuable with a unique set of skills to help bring to this assignment. We look forward to translating the skills we learned from this assignment to future assignments and job opportunities.

ALENER is an exceptional company and makes a great difference in changing the world around us. With that in mind, no company is perfect, and we believe that ALENER can be even greater after learning about them throughout the past couple weeks. Firstly, social media presence, it may seem like a small recommendation, but it can be great for ALENER’s growth. When going through ALENER’s website they have no social media links or hints of any social media presence. Although, they do post their innovations and projects on their website having these posted on social media platforms as well would be significantly better. This can help people who have never heard of ALENER find them easier, grow their public relations as their projects do great things for our planet, help develop their brand, create better marketing and outreach at little to no cost, and even make future networking easier. The other important recommendation we had for ALENER is upscaling employees, this change would be more difficult as it is quite an operational change but would be great for the future of ALENER. Since they’re a smaller business (between the range of 1-9 employees) doing such large innovations it is easy for them to have their hands full when trying to work on anything else. We saw this as an example when trying to get an interview from ALENER as they had difficulty creating time to take us on. We believe if ALENER had a larger workforce it would be easier for them to take on multiple projects while still being able to create time for simple tasks and they can work on larger more innovative projects that trump any of their past projects.

We believe if ALENER implements these two recommendations we gave them it can greatly help them in their future. Social media is a standard in today’s age and with the many important projects that ALENER does they would benefit more then the average company by taking advantage of it. It must also be difficult for ALENER to constantly be innovating while taking on new projects with such a small staff, increasing the workforce would make ALENER’s time more open and increase their production. With all this in mind, ALENER is an exceptional company, we look forward to seeing how they better our planet in the future.

Individual Reflections

Caridad: Working on this project has honestly been an unexpectedly interesting and quite enriching experience. It has not been easy at times, especially with the complications that working from different time zones brought and managing to get the interview. However I think we did an amazing job sorting through all of these problems while getting the work done and I couldn’t be more thankful for my team. I never thought I would have the opportunity to work on a project online with people from different countries while being at university, and honestly I wasn’t really looking forward to this project because even if the prospect of doing a cross-cultural project excited me, I wasn’t very interested in the content of the project. However, I was very wrong, because this project has proved to be very inspiring and a really challenging and worthwhile experience that has helped me learn a lot while getting to know new people.

Kaitlyn: This group project I feel had its challenges as well as was a rewarding project to take part in. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to talk with my group members. I believe that through this group project we were able to engage with individuals from around the world which is a great opportunity. This project was harder to manage just as everyone had very different schedules as well as we were all in different time zones. However, our group was very communicative and able to find times to meet that works for all of us. Another part of this project I enjoyed was learning about everyone’s companies from around the world and how they operate. I believe as a group we dealt with cross culture dynamics well as our interview was conducted in Spanish and the group members who conducted the interview did a great job on translating the content for the rest of the group. Overall I believe that this group project was a success, and a great learning opportunity.

Kameron: This project has been like no other that I have experienced throughout my time in school. Cooperating with other university students from different countries provided me with a unique and interesting challenge that I was excited to take on. Not only is there time zone differences but even things such as culture, learning style, and other skills were all interesting to learn from with my team. Before getting assigned my group I was a bit nervous as I have definitely experienced bad groups locally and could not imagine how much more stressful it could be if I had a bad group with a majority of the students being abroad. I was also concerned that there may be a language barrier or difficulty for some group members understanding tasks that need to be completed. Lastly, I was concerned of the difficulties of dealing with 3 different time zones.
Upon meeting my group the first week all the worries I had were quickly removed and I instantly felt comfortable with the people I worked with. All students showed up our first week which gave me great relief and communication was really easy making figuring out scheduling ideal.
Although we did have some challenges throughout the project such as delays with interview, rescheduling meetings, and figuring out how to divide the work. We always pushed forward and found a solution, everyone in the group was willing to contribute and we never had any bad disputes. I am grateful for the work my team/new friends have put in and I wish them great luck in their future endeavours.

Maria: Personally, I thought that this experience was a very enriching one. I had never before worked a university project, or any project whatsoever, online with people from all around the world and doing this assignment proved that it was possible. After all, it’s a skill that is necessary to master for my future job. I’m certain that, in the future, I will have to do projects with this cross-cultural dynamic.
To be honest, I had low expectations of how the project was going to go in terms of workload division, due to bad experiences doing assignments in teams. I thought that the added challenge of doing cross-culturally and online was going to make it even harder, since we don’t see each other face to face and it’s easier to “ghost the team” when it comes to getting the work done. Nevertheless, I was extremely surprised at how we were all conscious that the work needed to be done and that we all needed to participate to get the project on track and do the deliveries on time. I believe that each team member was an actual asset in the project and that we all made a really good team and were professional. In this aspect, it made the experience pleasant.
When it comes to the communication challenges and dealing with multiple time zones it’s true that it wasn’t an easy task. Being a busy university student and working a part-time job I already have a hard time coordinating my schedule with my friends in order to see them, so I found it even harder to coordinate my schedule with my teammates from different countries and different time zones. But in the end we each adapted our schedules and week by week we made the meetings possible. An added challenge came the 29th of October. My Spanish classmate and I encountered the change in time in our schedule. Now we had an hour less (our 3:00 that 29th of October was now our 2:00). This was tricky because we now had to replan our weekly meetings but in the end we were able to do it. This was something that when I started doing the project I didn’t have in mind that it would happen but I was surprised that it was not a tricky challenge to overcome after all.
All in all, it was an interesting and enriching experience in which I benefited from in a lot of ways and was able to prepare myself for my future work challenges.

Gift: I got to meet with new people who are from different ethnicities, and from the other part of the world and get acquainted with them. Working on this project with them was very educational and get to do the COIL project/research has taught me a lesson that I don’t believe I could have learned in the traditional classroom. It required exposing myself to a new situation filled with new people and new experiences. I am so grateful for the opportunity I had. Being part of COIL was one of the most formative experiences, and I know I will carry the lessons I learned and the experience I gained with me for the rest of my life. At first, I was hesitant thinking it is going to be difficult to do this work with people from overseas, but I got inspired also made friends while learning from everyone in my group.

Nkosikhona: Participating in this online project was a very transformative experience for me. Holding the virtual meetings across different time zones was a big challenge that emphasized the importance of effective communication and flexibility. It emphasized the necessity of accommodating diverse schedules, fostering a sense of teamwork, and understanding. I believe that we did a great job as a team towards making this assignment a success. Engaging students from different countries provided me with an opportunity to know more about the different approaches to addressing the sustainable development goals. I think that the tasks that I was given in the group sharpened my research skills and the whole program enabled me to interact with professionals who are making a positive impact in the world. By creating the poster we were able to summarize all of our collective efforts and findings. I am honored for being able to get this opportunity and I learned a lot of things from the project and my team members.