HETA were involved in a project in conjunction with 4 Humberside 6th Form Colleges – Wilberforce, Wyke, Franklin and John Leggott investigating the best use of renewable energy for the future of the Humber Region.

It was entitled the Future Power Generation Challenge and involved sets of students attempting to come up with a viable solution to the UK’s energy problems.

The pinnacle of this was a conference on 12th July at Reeds Hotel in Barton.

There were 8 companies at the event, each from a different sector of renewable energy including SMart Wind, Vivergo Fuels, Centrica, Solarwall, University of Hull, Drax Power and 8 groups of 16-18 year old students (20 per group) assigned to a sector.

The idea being that a representative from each sector would be there to champion it and advocate the use of them in the energy mix. This was part of a debate between the students in which they had 90 mins to put something together based around what they had learnt.

The students then got to vote after lunch at what percentage of each power they would use given a hypothetical pie chart of energy. What percentage wind power, solar, bio-fuels etc should the Humber Region be using by the year 2050.

In addition to this, there was a hall available for them to put up an exhibition stand and for students and attendees to walk around to find out more about the companies who attended in a careers fair style format.

In addition to the debate, 2 keynote speakers attended, Dr Glyn Hughes from Humber Chemical Focus and Sue Guest from National Skills Academy for Power.

The conference went fantastically well with great feedback from all particpants. Steve Clarke, UK Content Manager for SMartwind, one of the companies who took part in the energy debate said "On behalf of Mainstream Renewable Power & SMart Wind, a huge thank you for involving me in today's Post-16 2020 Energy-Mix event at Reeds Hotel in N.Lincs. Ordinarily I would have completed a Feedback Form, but numerous people kept me busy beyond the formal proceedings - the sign of a great event involving all the right people. Clearly I accepted James' original invitation without question because I knew HETA wouldn't invite me to something which lacked credibility. However, despite arriving with high expectations, your event actually exceeded these"

Due to the success, HETA will be looking to run a similar event next year involving East Riding 6th Forms.

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