I have recently completed the StrengthsFinder Quiz, which analyses our answers to over 100 questions, and presents us with our five top strengths. This can potentially be applied to our future careers, and the decisions leading up to them. My results from the quiz, and the descriptions, are as follows:

My 5 Top Strengths:

1. Learner- "A great desire to learn and want to continuously improve. The process of learning, rather than the outcome, excites them"
2. Achiever- "Work hard and possess a great deal of stamina. They take immense satisfaction from being busy and productive"
3. Relator- "Enjoy close relationships with others. They find deep satisfaction in working hard with friends to achieve a goal"
4. Discipline- "Enjoy routine and structure. Their world is best described by the order they create".
5. Significance- "Want to be very important in others' eyes. They are independent and want to be recognised"

Do I agree and were there any surprising results?

My reactions to the results were positive. I think that the combination is an overall encouraging result, and I believe that they apply well to my course. I agree with all themes, as all the accompanying traits fit my perception of myself well. The only factor which surprised me was that 'Significance' was within the top five results, as I never previously believed this to be one of my strongest traits. However, upon reflection, I notice that recognition for my achievements is very important to me, and accomplishment often accompanies acknowledgement of the time and effort invested in a task or project.

Do I think this information is helpful?

The usefulness and usability of this information depends on the application, For personal use and analysis, it can be useful to recognise my strengths, and potential weaknesses so I can apply myself appropriately, and work on improving any weaknesses. However, I believe that for formal corporate or career use, this information is not very useable without evidence of these accompanying strengths, in the form of relevant experience.

(Descriptions are sourced from [2])

The choices we had for our energy challenges for this module were 'Smart Homes' and 'E-Mobility'. As a team, we decided on 'E-Mobility'. The outline of our challenge was given as:

"The particular challenges are to increase the range of the e-car as well as its flexibility. Analyse the available data from the pilot project and similar initiatives to help you design a distributed infrastructure to support e-car deployment with increased range and flexibility."

My individual research relating to this challenge will be posted on this page, and any team work will be posted to the Germany Team 6 page.

Using research provided in the debrief, combined with my own research, this is a brief summary of Germany related to the current project. This is not extra content for the country research- only a summary of what I have said:

- 82% of households possess at least 1 car. 25% have 2, 5% have 3 or more. [4]

- 'Conseil Europeen du Commerce at de la reparation Automobiles' expects 2.96 million new car registrations in 2015 in Germany.

- 18,948 electric cars were registered in Germany as of January 1st 2015. [5]

- In 2013, there were 4400 charging stations in Germany [24]. This is expected to rise to 150,000 in 2020. 

- Germany has set a goal to reach 1 million e-cars by 2020. [25]

- 2011- 587.6 motor vehicles per 1000 people. 531.0 passenger cars per 1000 people. [6]

As a computer scientist, I believe that my role should be to analyse the problem we face, and then identify what I think a possible solution should be, and create a clearly outlined argument for this concept.

(Any missing sources are in the Country Brief Profile Section)

Identifying the Problem:

My individual research found the EU set a target to reduce CO2 emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2020 [26], as well as that energy efficiency increasing by 20% by 2020. Germany has set a goal to have 1 million e-cars on the road by 2020 [25]. These will act as an incentives for Germany to reduce CO2 emissions, and thus investments will be larger in this field- there are 18,948 as of January 2015 [5].

I wanted to identify the current extent of car ownership in Germany, and I found that in 2011 there were 587.6 motor vehicles per 1000 people, and 531.0 passenger cars per 1000 people [6]. This motor vehicle ownership are the 13^th highest in the world as of 2011. [6] 2.96 million new car registrations are expected in 2015. [27] In comparison, the average rate in the EU in 2012 was 484 according to the ec.europa.ac Transport 10 document [28]. 82% of German households have >=1 car. [4]

According to ec.europa.eu, the highest number of passenger cars in Europe was in Germany: 43 million as of 2012. The number of passengers carried by private motorised transport was 57,230 million in 2013 [8]. This totals 82% of the total recorded number of passengers carried.

To analyse why consumers weren't buying electric vehicles, and what needed to improve in order to get more people to buy them, I analysed data from the UK's Department of Transport document entitled "Public Attitudes to Electric Vehicles", which outlines survey results from 2014. The most relevant survey question was "Factors discouraging buying an electric car or van". The results were:

Clearly recharging is a large concern of the consumer, as there were only 4400 charging stations in 2013 [24]. The document then states "Of those reporting recharging as a deterrent, the most important factors were the availability/lack of charging points combined with distance travelled and concerns about running out of charge", showing the concern surrounding charging e-cars.

I wanted to focus on Germany, so I used a document called “Attitude of European Car Drivers towards Electric Vehicles” from the European Comission. 606 interviews were conducted for this document. 52% of these people said their probability of buying an e-car at the moment was , and the top 2 reasons for not buying an e-car were price and battery. 38% of answerers wanted the distance travelled with a single charge to be improved the most.

Many aspects of this problem need to be considered when conceiving a relevant solution. E-cars is a very political problem, with oil and fuel companies being likely heavily opposed to e-cars replacing current vehicles. Government sponsorship would also be essential for passing concepts through development stages. Economically, subsidies would be valuable to the adoption of these proposed plans by the public. Huge investments would be needed, and large companies would need to sponsor these plans. Viable solutions need to be quickly adopted by the demographic, and social issues such as familiarity and target audiences need to be considered.

Wind Energy

Germany’s Government has set a target to generate 40-45% of Germany’s electricity from renewable energy sources by 2025. [17]. There are currently 24,200 turbines in operation in Germany, producing 9% of Germany’s total consumed electricity in 2013. This supplies >15 million 3-person households, whilst the total used land area for these turbines is 10% of Berlin’s area. [12]. Currently, on-shore turbines generate ≈41.5% of Germany’s renewable power, but only require 19% of EEG (Renewable Energy Act) feed-in tariffs in 2014. Wind power is the cheapest source of available power today. [13]. The growth in the use of wind power is exceptional, with capacity increasing by 58% in 2014 compared to 2013. The efficiency is also increasing, as 30% more 2002 wind turbines would be needed to produce 2/3 of the power of modern turbines.[14]

The image below shows the increase of wind capacity in Germany. [14] :

Smart Grids and Meters

I attended the Energy workshop entitled “Smart Grids and Storage”, which provided me with some ideas surrounding the provision and control of energy throughout Germany, especially considering the battery changing stations and their energy supplies.

A ‘smart grid’ is an integrated network of hardware, management and software combined with an intelligent communications network which allows for the monitoring and response to energy changes. Automatic optimisation of grid elements & maximised efficiency and reliability of the electric system accompany the smart grid idea. [15] The system would be able to respond to all elements connected to it, and balance the energy supply accordingly.

As Germany has a huge amount of energy produced by decentralised renewable energy sources, an expansion of the transmission grid would allow the facilitation of increasing electricity supply from renewable sources.

A smart meter installed in the battery stations would monitor whether the supply from the direct renewable sources is enough, and if there is a deficit of power then it can collect power from the grid accordingly. There are currently 35 million smart-meters installed in Europe, and so this concept could assist our overall network develop. [16]

(image source: eonenergy.com)

Electromagnetic Induction Charging

The concept of the induction charging lanes on motorways stems from a UK pilot project entitled ‘Electric Highways’. The system is referred to as a Dynamic Wireless Power Transfer (DWPT) scheme. A typical DWPT system consists of primary coils embedded in a road, and these are connected to roadside units which are in turn connected to a Distribution Network Operator Supply. The system also typically includes a communication system that facilitates communication between the vehicle and the roadside unit, as well as a sensor which detects the position of a vehicle relative to the coils.[18]

The system can potentially be implemented on all e-car vehicles and types, although no manufacturers currently offer fitted DWPT systems. Cars, vans and HGVs could potentially use the system. The best battery for this system is two lithium-ion batteries, as they’re the most feasible.[18]

The costs and benefits of the concept are outlined below, with details from the Highways England ‘Electric Highways’ feasibility analysis document.[18]

The table below outlines the estimated costs per km for installing the system. [19] (NPV= Net Present Value)

The graph below displays results from an Online Survey of 200 people conducted by Highways England. The question is relating to what effect the DWPT system would have on the consumers use/observations of the technology. Through this we can see the potential impacts of the scheme.

This mind-map is a map of the concepts I have come up with as this module has moved along. I believe my overall concept will be a multilateral combination of these ideas in a large-scale plan for Germany.

source: [21]

Information Campaign to the Public:

I believe an essential initial step to encourage the adoption of e-cars and other elements of this network, an information campaign would be undeniably effective. This campaign would inform the public about the costs and benefits of electric cars, as well as comparing the most popular cars and their costs. I would want this information to be as unbiased as possible, just honestly informing the general population. A PDF version of these leaflets could be sent to people interested in the scheme, reducing printing costs and effects, etc.

Through my research into the German people’s attitudes to electric cars, I found the 4^th most important reason people weren’t interested in purchasing an e-car was ‘lack of knowledge’. This scheme would need to dispute myths surrounding electric cars, especially concerning charging times and cost. This information campaign could even gain sponsorship from electric car manufacturers, as well as the government, and this would propel the concept even further. Informative radio and TV adverts could be made to inform the public even further without the need for direct contact.

Below is a concept for a basic leaflet that could be distributed to the public- the actual document is in the File(s) to Download section at the bottom of the page:

Electric park and ride schemes:

Alongside considering our primary objective of increasing the number of electric vehicles on the road, I think that we must consider the fact that congestion could worsen alongside this, potentially lowering ranges on any e-cars anyway, and increasing pollution from gasoline cars. Inner-city areas are most likely to suffer from the consequences of this, and therefore I proposed of developing the current park-and-ride schemes used commonly in cities and large towns.

In this concept, drivers of any type of car could park their vehicles in the park-and-ride stops, and keep the cars there for a day. There would be a few charging points available to e-car owners, and many parking spaces. After parking, members of the public could take one of a few electric shuttle buses carrying groups of people to designated stops within the city. This would reduce congestion in the inner city areas, as well as improving issues such as parking in these areas.

I thought that perhaps e-car owners could use this system for a discounted, or even free, rate to encourage adoption of the e-cars in the area. Non-electric car owners would have to pay a small fee to use the system, but a small fee as this reduces pollution, as well as increasing use of public transport schemes.

Battery changing/charging stations:

One of the main areas we, as a team, kept repeating was the importance of the e-car infrastructure being more efficient and easier to use than the current gasoline car infrastructure. Initially, we insisted that the batteries themselves should be improved to increase efficiency and range. However, I thought that if we wanted to minimise the customer waiting times for charging, then why not propose a system where they don’t have to charge them at all. My concept involves the idea that the battery in the e-car is removable, and when a customer has depleted charge, they can stop at a ‘battery changing station’.

In this case, the owner of the e-car will pay for a percentage of the charge they need. For example, if they enter the station with a 20% charge, they will pay for 80% of the total cost. If 100% were to cost £10 hypothetically, then you pay for the percentage of this price you need (so £8 for an 80% refill from 20% initially). If this concept were to be used, customers would have to wait little to no time for a ‘recharge’ of their battery. The station would be charging a batch of batteries at any one time, maintaining a constant flow of batteries in and out.

My proposal is that these stations are powered by solar or wind power depending on the availability of both sources. Over time, as more wind farms are constructed across Germany, these stations can use electricity from the grid entirely- minimising the amount of new infrastructure needed for each station. In the beginning, solar panels or a small wind turbine could be installed feeding power to the station, with backup from the grid if at night-time or a period of low wind speed.

Below is a blueprint of what I imagine part of a battery swapping station to look like:

Induction charging lanes:

In 2014, I read an article in the New Scientist called “Wireless Charging for Electric Vehicles hits the road”, and this outlines a potential new charging solution for electric vehicles through electromagnetic induction. This essentially means no cables are required, there can be an efficiency of 90% or higher, as well as the fact that the car can be moving when it is charging. This saves time and money for the consumer. Doug Bolton wrote an article on 18^th August 2015 outlining the fact that the UK government invested £200 million in the potential of an induction charging lane network. The technology involves an electromagnetic transmitter which is planted in the road, and this would induce a voltage in a receiver integrated in the bottom of the car. The issues surrounding this concept are concerning feasibility- cost and installation. This concept would require a lot of time, construction and adaptation of the current infrastructure in Germany. However, it would be a huge incentive for more people to purchase and use e-cars, as well as greatly improving the potential range of e-cars per charge.

The idea has been conceptualised by the UK government, outlined in the image below [20]:

My more basic concept is a single lane idea added to the outside lane of major motorway links in Germany. This concept is outlined in the image below. The lanes would be green, a colour regularly associated with the environment. A way of registering who was driving in the lane would need to be installed, perhaps in the form of number plate recognition- as charging customers would still be necessary at the early stages.

Were there any differences in the marks that I and our Academic leader gave my team? Was I surprised by the differences?

After reading through the assessment rubric, the marks we received were not surprising to me. I believe there were areas where the team could’ve improved the team myPortfolio pages a lot, and there were obviously shortcomings in doing so. I don’t believe, although it was completed, the ‘Design Brief and Criteria, Problem/Need, Sustainability and Country research’ page was eloquently worded, and there was not enough detail or analysing of the problem. Due to this, I can completely understand the marks that we received. The scores I had given the team were 6 5 5, so not extremely different to the what we were given, therefore similar marks were expected. I was, obviously, disappointed with the overall standard of our achieved grades.

My reasoning for giving a 6 in the first item of the rubric was that I believed that, although there were flaws in the analytical and reasoning aspects of the communication of the pages, our ideas and beliefs came through. There were definitely inconsistencies between the quality of each section, and some sections were too short to include all the needed information.

I agreed with all the feedback we received into why we got a 5 in the ‘Research, Understanding and Awareness of Sustainable Energy Challenge Problem/Need in assigned country’, and therefore agreed with the mark of 5 due to the lack of information, structure and balanced reasoning in this section.

Finally, I also agreed with the mark given for the ‘Formulation of Design Brief and Criteria’ due to the lack of relevant material and the limited awareness of stakeholders. This area definitely needed improving, and the feedback will be critical to making the changes we need.

Was there any feedback which will help my team and I improve our project and myPortfolio pages?

We received a lot of extremely useful feedback which will be essential to creating team pages with more detail, clearer structures, and higher marks. I understood that we needed to rewrite many aspects of the first team page with more sophisticated language, better grammar and more information. As well as this, improvements really needed to be made in the referencing of sources in the research sections. The referencing was very unclear and unprofessional, and this can be improved very easily. As well as this, the design criteria needed to be more succinct and thought through, with no duplication and more thought about the different aspects of ACCESSFM, especially concerning the customer aspect of the project.

We were advised to follow the templates and rubric more closely, ensuring we answer as many of the given questions as needed, and fulfilling all the required criteria for higher marks.

The feedback has been, and will continue to be, extremely useful in considering which aspects of our project and portfolio need to be improved.

How are things within Pegasus Design?

Although there are no personal issues within the group, I feel an imbalance in the distribution of work up until this point. I am an ambitious person, and whilst also being a perfectionist, I want all of our team work to be completed to the highest standard possible. Aspects of the work which is completed isn’t good enough, and isn’t fulfilling all of the assessment criteria for the higher marks.

A lack of active participation or collaboration from certain team members puts pressures on other teammates to complete any work, or fix issues with the previous work. I feel a personal pressure to do a lot of extra work to improve the teams mark, even though this work hasn’t been designated to me by the team, due to potential differences in expected standard of work. I believe this may improve as people are designated team pages later on.

There are problems with involvement in the workshops by certain members of the team, but this has been, I believe, partially resolved by allocating small jobs to team members throughout the workshops to ensure everything is moving ahead.

Our team gets along well, even though we have had quite a few changes to adapt to over the first few workshops. Initially, we were meant to be a team of 7, but one of our team members was absent for the first 2 workshops and so we got a new member. Now we have 8 members of the team, 2 of which have had to catch up extremely quickly and therefore the rest of the team has had to complete current tasks while they catch up. This isn’t their fault but it is just an issue we, as a team, have had to overcome. Overall, as a team, we get along and we tend to have similar opinions about the project.

How is the team project coming along?

The team project is now going reasonably well, despite some small issues initially. The team understands our general concept, and we are now all working towards the same goal. After being given our feedback, we have a clearer understanding of what we need to work on as a team, and what needs to be done before each stage.

I believe we, as a team, have learned a lot of skills about teamwork throughout the challenge so far. We have started designating roles and workloads to different people, and compromising easily with each other. As well as this, we now know what is expected of our myPortfolio pages, and so have a clear direction to go in to improve the pages.

Differences in the Marks Given?

Team Page 2- Design Concepts

Mark Academic Leader gave: 5

Mark I gave: 6

I believe that there was perhaps some miscommunication about what was expected of the concept on this page. We believed that this page was for the summarisation of design concepts to explain the main ideas surrounding each concept, not including details which can likely be found on the individual pages. Therefore I had given the page a high 6, maybe even a 7, whereas our academic leader gave a 5. Most of the criticisms were concerning more semantic ideas such as implementation of concepts, etc, whereas we hadn’t realised this page was the location for this, as the text included had to be minimal to fit within the word limits given. Although this is understandable, I don’t believe that this page should be for details and it should just be showing the different concepts we came up with as a team as a whole, whereas the individual pages should hold these finer details.

I was surprised by this difference in marking, although I understand and follow each comment given, and we will alter the page accordingly. I think this difference was just down to a miscommunication surrounding the idea of what the page should actually be. The feedback we were given can be acted upon easily, as valid questions were raised. This will likely help improve not only this team page, but the overall solution.

Team Page 3- Energy Research

Mark Academic Leader gave: 7

Mark I gave: 7

There were no differences in the overall marks I gave the page, and what the academic leader gave. I do believe that all the comments for this page were very constructive and will allow for huge improvements. I personally did the research for Smart Grids and Induction Charging Lanes, and now I know which areas I need to improve to get higher marks for the page overall.

All of the comments given can be easily used to improve the team page, as well as providing some useful information about different energy concepts which can be used in later pages.

Team Page 4- Energy Model

Marks I gave the page: 7

Marks Academic Leader gave: 6

I had given this page a mark of seven, whilst the academic leader gave a mark of 6. I thought the page as a whole contained a lot of vital and well thought-out information, which I believed to be the brief given for this page. In reference to the comments, I believe they make sense and I understand the reason for giving them. The first comment referring to the calculation of power I believe was a miscommunication perhaps, as we had calculated the power correctly, just written the unit in a confusing way maybe. The second comment is confusing as the 1kWh/m^2 can be found in the solar energy section of our energy research page, where we say each m^2 receives 1000Wh/m^2 of irradiation. Perhaps the information is conveyed confusingly, or perhaps contradicts itself, in which case the page can be fixed accordingly. We can include the average sun power per day easily.

I believed that the discussion of cost and energy was reasonably balanced, and I believe that for our specific concept, costing is extremely important. There are a few errors within the energy research which can be corrected easily, and conveyed in a much more understandable way overall largely due to the feedback we received. However, we didn’t decide on the number of stations from 10% of the car demand, but from a combination of energy requirements and average charging needs per year. We have said that the stations will be supported by solar energy, but will be connected to the grid via a Smart Meter to increase reliability. We will make any needed corrections. Due to the reasons I have stated above, I was reasonably surprised by the differences, however I can understand the viewpoint of our academic leader, and we will certainly take these comments into consideration.

Team Page 5- Final Solution

I agree with the score we were given for this page overall. Since the comments, we have made many changes to this page which were miscommunicated through the team. We will be doing a multi-phased implementation of our concept, building 500 in the first year, 1500 in the second etc. There will be a total of 14000 stations by 2020 to fulfil the needs set out by the aim for 1 million e-cars by 2020. We have removed the capacitor due to there being a lot of mixed communication being around, and we therefore could not determine whether there is actually need for this capacitor. Due to the concept being very new, and not previously tried, it is extremely difficult to acquire data about the weight of the battery, or even the cost.

We will work on the consistency of the numbers, and will discuss the areas of feasibility, viability and desirability. The entire concept is to make the ‘charging’ quicker, and therefore people can swap a battery out and receive a charged one quickly, so I don’t understand the very final comment. However, we can easily improve the page, and correct any inconsistencies. This feedback will help us communicate our idea better and more clearly overall.

How are things going in our team?

The team dynamics are much better now than earlier on, as we now allocate tasks more efficiently, and we communicate much better. Everybody seems to be working hard, and completing their work on time. Since the first reflection, work seems to be distributed more fairly. As well as this, we seem to get along better and more efficiently in workshops, and we organise team meetings regularly.

The only thing I was bothered by is the allocation of the team video to me. Although I understand that people had pages allocated to them which they were working on, and people had to complete their own work, the team video was a lot of work and I had to invest a lot of time in the video, which overrode my own coursework for CS at some points which was worrying. To be fair, I received help from some people within the workshops, and a member of the team produced a 3D model. I think my issue is not actually with my team, but with the general workload of this video. My team, overall, were very helpful.

How is your team project wrapping up?

The project is wrapping up quite nicely, with many of the main tasks being done, and each team member has a clear idea of our final solution, and what the key aspects are. We have worked hard in the last week to do as much as we can, and get the highest marks we can achieve. I’m proud of how my team has worked within the last few weeks.

My experience of the design process?

My experience of the design cycle has been very varied, with a combination of positive and negative. Overall, the design process has been interesting, and most of what I have learnt has been surrounding the concept stage. We learned, as a team, that concepts are extremely important and can be done individually and combined to form the most appealing and useful design. As well as this, the decision making stage was extremely interesting, using the team decision matrices, etc, which I had not used before but I found them very useful. I have learned a lot about teamwork, task allocation and conceptualisation including the divergent and convergent thinking ideas, and the team discussions and feedback. I need more time to learn about how to allocate tasks when you have just met your team, but due to the short term nature of this project, I believe we did well. 

[1]-           http://www.luc.edu/media/sitebackgrounds/cas-computer-science.jpg

[2]-           https://www.gallupstrengthscenter.com/

[3]-           https://moodle.ucl.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=25245&section=10

[4]-           https://www.adac.de/

[5]-           Kraftfahrt-Bundesamt

[6]-           World Development Indicators Databank- The World Bank

[7]-           ec.europa.ac Database (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/transport/data/database)

[8]-           Destatis- Statistisches Bundesamt

[9]-           https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/public-attitudes-towards-electric-vehicles-2014

[10]-https://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/Attitude_of_European_car_driver_towards_electric_vehicles-a_survey.pdf

[11]-        https://www.wind-energie.de/en (Wind Moves the Energiewende- Wind moves Germany document)

[12]-        Wind moves Germany document- WindGuard, German Ministry of Economics and Technology

[13]-        Wind moves Germany document- BDEW German Association of Energy and Water Industries 2014

[14]-        https://www.wind-energie.de/en (Yearbook Wind Energy 2015 Publication)

[15]-        Smart Grid Dictionary, C Hertzog

[16]-        http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/europes-smart-meter-race-hitting-its-stride

[17]-        Bundesverband WindEnergie

[18]-        http://www.highways.gov.uk/knowledge/projects/preparing-the-strategic-road-network-for-electric-vehicles/  (feasibility study of ‘Electric Highways’ scheme)

[19]-        Highways England

[20]-        https://www.gov.uk/government/news/off-road-trials-for-electric-highways-technology

[21]-        https://www.mindmup.com/#m:new-g-1445459127435- made by Emily Mears using mindmup software

[22]-    www.northwestern.edu

[23]- https://setis.ec.europa.eu/system/files/Attitude_of_European_car_drivers_towards_electric_vehicles-a_survey.pdf

[24]-     https://www.bdew.de/internet.nsf/id/bdew-erhebung-elektromobilitaet-mittlerweile-fast-4-400-oeffentlich-zugaengliche-ladepunkte-in-deut

[25]-     http://www.gtai.de/GTAI/Content/EN/Invest/_SharedDocs/Downloads/GTAI/Brochures/Industries/electromobility-in-germany-vision-2020-and-beyond-en.pdf

[26]-        http://ec.europa.eu/clima/citizens/eu/index_en.htm

[27]-        Conseil Europeen du Commerce at de la reparation Automobiles

[28]-        Europa.ac Transport 10 Document (http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/documents/3217494/5786385/KS-HA-14-001-10-EN.PDF)