The past week


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I thought I would try to describe a week of non-trainee related work.

So, what has happened since last Friday? Not that I managed to blog last Friday or anything, but for the sake of the argument, imagine I did.

Last Saturday the alpine branch of the ever so appreciated sports club at Vattenfall, Vattenfalls IF, organized a trip to Romme Alpine in Dalarna, Sweden. Me and a few fellow colleagues accepted the offer and endured the 5.30 am wake-up call while praying to the weather gods. And boy did that pay off, clear skies and -1 celcius. Turned out to be a perfect day in the slopes. Sign me up for next year!

The normal work-week then started off Monday by an even earlier wake-up call to catch the early flight to Helsinki. Spent the day at the Helsinki office, unfortunately without any opportunity to see what the city had to offer. Me and me colleague Sven had a very productive day of meetings. So inspiring to see a different market, with its’ pros and cons. Back in Sweden just in time for dinner.

Another notable activity I have undertaken this week is the highly prestigious Power Grid challenge. I would be the first guy to admit to its geekyness, but yes, it’s a board game about building power plants. Like Monopoly meets Risk meets the electricity industry. Like I said it is a very prestigious battle at the office, unfortunately 3-time champion Håkan snagged the victory right in front of my nose. Cried myself to sleep that night.

Other than that I have spent the week working on my projects, late nights and early mornings. Just like I like it. I guess that phase will pass 🙂

I have gotten requests to explain the trainee requirement process, which I will do. So keep your eyes open people.

Till then, have a great weekend!

/Marcus

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Hello and very welcome to my trainee blog!


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My name is Matilda and I am a participator in Vattenfall International Trainee program. In this first entry, I will tell you some about myself, the trainee program and the work that I do.

I am 25 years old and was born in Landvetter outside Gothenburg. I have always liked the nature and in my spare time I like to do all kind of outdoor life like kayaking, hiking in the mountains or just strolling in the forests with some friends. When I was 19 I went to Scotland where I studied and worked as an Au pair. After half a year filled with bagpipes, Loch Ness Monsters and whiskey I came back to Sweden and began my studies in chemical engineering at Chalmers University of Technology. It was a great time full of laughs, friends, farcical funs and of course studying. I chose a master called Sustainable Energy System, which gave me a wide knowledge about the energy sector. During my last semester I chose a couple of courses within nuclear engineering and finished my studies by doing my master thesis within radioactive waste management at Ringhals nuclear power plant.

Last autumn I started as a trainee in Vattenfall International Trainee program. The program runs for twelve months and consists of six weeks of seminars together with the other trainees from the program and approximately four months of assignments somewhere within the Vattenfall organization. During the seminar weeks we get a good mixture of for example technology, knowledge about Vattenfall, visits to power plants, energy facts and management and you can really feel that they invest a lot in us.

When you apply to the program you apply to a special position that is already connected to one of Vattenfalls offices or plants. My position is called Nuclear engineering and I work at the technical department at Ringhals reactor unit 3 and 4. At my department we mostly work with a special document called Safety Analysis Report, SAR. This document describes how to ensure that the nuclear power plant is safe. Our responsibility is to make sure that this document describes what the power plant looks like and that we follow the current legislation. My work is associated with a broad assortment of many different technologies.

Don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions about the program or the work that I do. 

//Matilda

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A source of renewable inspiration


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Hello and welcome to a source of renewable inspiration! My name is Louise Hammarberg and I participate in the Vattenfall international trainee program. The aim of my blog is to give an insight of the trainee program, share my experiences as well as outline the possibilities within the smart energy system of the future.

I was born and raised in Stockholm and travelled to Australia after graduating from high school. I studied at a collage in Sydney, played tennis and other outdoor sports.  After a joyful time on the surfboard I moved to Lund for a half decade of university studies. I studied Business Administration and Management at the Lund School of Economics and Management. I ended up with a Bachelor in Strategic Management and a Master degree in Technology Management, which is a cooperation between the School of Economics and the School of Engineering. The program reconnects the subjects of technology, economy and management with a focus on project leading.

I usually describe myself to be an economist who understands the technical language, aiming to work with innovation, sustainability and communication. I found the possibility to interconnect these subjects within the energy business. The industry is facing huge challenges on its way towards a low carbon future, seeking for new system solutions, new collaboration partners and a harmonisation of regulation systems. The energy business is heading towards a paradigm shift in terms of more renewables, electric vehicles and an active demand side, all enabled by smarter grids.

I have during my first six month been working with connection services of renewables, Emobility and Smart Grids.

I spent the first month of the program in Trollhättan working with an investment program for wind power connections at Distribution Nordic. I gained a good knowledge of the economics in the distribution business and the fact that the grid is the bottleneck in the new energy system.

Thereafter, I joined the business development team of green Emobility at Vattenfall Europe Innovation in Berlin. The driver for Emobility on the German market is the increasing need for storage capacity due to the increasing demand of renewables. The battery of an electric vehicle is seen as a storage room for wind power.

My next project was within grid innovation in Berlin/Hamburg where I was involved in Demand Side Management. My focus was to investigate how to actively steer the energy consumption of the consumers by price signals and differentiated tariffs.

Furthermore, I have been participating in seminar weeks in Stockholm, Berlin and Warsaw together with my dear trainee colleagues. We are in total 15 trainees from Sweden, Germany, Holland, Poland, Finland and the UK. The seminar weeks provides us with introductions to the various operations within Vattenfall, knowledge about the value chain as well as valuable training in management, team building and personal development.

As a trainee I have got a great chance to explore and get to know various areas of the company, meet lots of skilful colleagues and to share findings throughout the organisation. It has also been possible to shape my own content of my various assignments.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding any of this. I hope to keep you updated with new findings and experiences!

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Working weekend in Åre


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This weekend have I been up in Åre working and enjoyed the Swedish mountains. Vattenfall is proud sponsor of the Swedish ski association, which means that Vattenfall takes part in different ski events. We hade a big event during WM  in Garmisch –Partenkirchen and now this weekend a event during the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Åre. We where 11 persons from different locations in the Vattefall organisation working during this event. We had a big tent at the arena where visitors could try ski simulators and see how much energy the generated while doing slalom, cross country skiing or ski  jumping. We also had a cheering competition where the person how cheered the most by shaking there phone whit the app “Power of cheering” won. It was a great weekend even though we didn’t get any Swedish medals.

 Someone how  was there? Let me know what you thought!

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Vattenfall International Trainee Program


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Greetings,

If you accidently have stumbled across this blog, welcome! If you actually intended to visit this blog, even more welcome! If you are a bot attempting to spam the comment field, not so welcome.

Since this is my blog-debut I will, in coherence with decent manners, introduce myself. As the header above may reveal, my name is Marcus Hedman. I am originally from Umeå in the north of Sweden. Not as north as they come, but still pretty cold. I began my bachelor studies at BI Norwegian School of Management (Handelsøyskolen BI) in Oslo where I studied international marketing for 3 years including one full year at Fudan University in Shanghai, China. I then fulfilled a M.Sc. in what now is called International Management. This included one year in Oslo and one year with more economical and financial studies at ESCP-Europe in Paris, France.

This little cocktail led my to this – Vattenfall’s international trainee program, which I now am half way of completing. Actually feels a bit sad to say. The latter part, that is.

My first six month has been rather hectic, full of information and so much fun. My colleague Johanna Häägg has already described our first seminar weeks, so I will spare you the details and give you the short version:

1st week: Stockholm, Älvkarleby and Forsmark with visits to hydro- and nuclear plants.
2nd week: Berlin, Lübbenau and Cottbus with visits to a CCS plant (carbon capture and storage) and a lignite mine.
3rd week: Warsaw with a visit to a CHP plant (combined heat and power).

Besides the producing part of the value chain, we have also undergone management training and teambuilding, visited other offices, visited external companies, etcetera etcetera. On top of this I have had the opportunity to get to know my fellow trainee colleagues from Finalnd, Poland, Germany, Holland and Ireland.

Aside from the trainee program I am hired as a business analyst at “product and pricing” within sales. Me and my colleagues here are involved in product development, product management and pricing. Right up my alley.

I have also done an “assignment” connected to the trainee program where I spent two months in Asset Optimisation and Trading, a great opportunity to get to know the organization.

I could go on for hours, but I will spare you guys and stop here for a while. But please let me know what you would like to know about Vattenfall, the trainee program, or just life in general.

I once heard that a blog is as good as its update frequency. Not really, just made that up. But nevertheless, I will try to keep a good flow of information coming your way.

Stay tuned.
/Marcus

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My first 6 months of Vattenfall International Trainee program


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Hey!

Welcome to my blog, I hope you will find my first year as a trainee at Vattefall interesting. Where should I start? Introduce my self maybe. My name is Johanna Häägg and I am from Uppsala, Sweden’s forth largest city and a big university town as well. After high school I moved to Perth, Australia for one year, where I studied and also worked as a graphic designer. When I got back home in 2006 I started studying Computer Science and System Development at Uppsala University. After four amazing years in the student’s city Uppsala, I started working for Vattenfall 1 Sep 2010!

I have now been a trainee for 6 months and the time as been flying. I started working in my home organisation Vattenfall IT for a couple of months. I was part of a project building up a new Test Centre of Excellence within Vattenfall. This was a perfect start, I was from day one part of a team, I could contribute directly whit the knowledge I had gain from my thesis work (Requirement management and Test) and I got to know a lot of people within the IT organisation.

During this half year have I also been on 3 seminar week’s whit my trainee colleges from all over the organisation. We are 15 international trainees working in Sweden, Holland, Germany, Poland, Denmark and UK.

The first week we where outside Stockholm, mostly working on building our team and getting to know each other. We also visit Forsmark nuclear power plant and Älvkaleby hydro power plant.

The second seminar was held in Berlin and the area around Cottbus which is a big mining area in east Germany. We started of whit a day at the main office in central Berlin, meeting some of the people working there and also 20 former Vattenfall trainees from Germany, Sweden and Poland. When you join the trainee program you also become a member of Vattenfall Alumni Association (VITAA). The second day we had a very interesting and inspiring day at European School of Management and Technology (ESMT). The rest of the week we lived in the small village Lübenau and visit a coal power plant, an open coal mine and a village that hade been moved because of the mine. We hade a lot of interesting discussions about coal as an energy source and how different the conditions are in all countries and how that affects the choice of energy sources in each country.

The third seminar was held in Warszawa three weeks ago, there we got an insight on the aspects of running a large company buy playing a business game. We also visit the office in Warszawa, a heat power plant and learned about polish history and culture.

I have also have had the time to do one of my two assignments abroad. The first one I did at the Sales department in Berlin. It was very interesting to get insight in a new business area and in the German way of living and working.

Now I am back at the office in Stockholm but that I will tell you more about later on!

    

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