As part of course requirement for the award of the master’s degree, International Class is under-taken as a guided practical field research in a foreign country. In the past years the class has been in held in Scotland and Nepal.

The objective is to provide students with the opportunity to apply and extend the knowledge and skills they have acquired through their lectures and seminars at the University of Flensburg. Students conduct field research analysis the data and present the results of the finding to the partner organizations and community.

SESAM International Class 2009 is divided into two Groups: Barra and South Uist teams.

Along with Lecturer Ing. Wulf Boie, the team comprises of eight team members with diverse academic and professional back grounds. The team is based in Barra Island and its main task in line with the set objective, will be, to identify business opportunities for the Barra Vatersay Community. in the field of renewable energy. The team comprises of four mechanical engineers, two chemical engineers, one production engineer and a natural resources scientist. Despite the heavy bias of technical persons in the team, our knowledge in project planning, social science, financial and environmental management is well developed to carry out an all round study.

 

The main objective of the team as mentioned above will be to identify business opportunities for the Barra Vatersay Community Ltd. in the field of renewable energy. To achieve this end the group will be guided with three specific objectives as highlighted below:

 

1. Heat supply of the Horve area in the town of Castlebay using renewable energy, by a district heating scheme   using biomass, wind or possibly waste.

           

To meet the set objectives the team will carry out both desk and field studies on the three subject areas to find out the most cost effective, practical and environmentally acceptable solutions.

Each of the three study areas are headed by a lead person who will be responsible for successful completion of the study area.

 

With successful completion of the study, the group will recommend the best sources of energy for heating of Horve area, Castlebay from the available resources: wind, biomass, and waste; How to meet heat demand of the cluster of households in Vatersay from biomass or excess wind power; and finally the potential of wind power in meeting the electricity demand of BARRATLANTIC fish and shellfish company at Aird Mihdhinis.

 

The team is highly motivated and looking forward to fruitful cooperation from all the stakeholders for the success of the study.