The cover story and the majority of this month’s PM Network magazine (the instrument of the Project Management Institute, PMI) is – as you can see, focused on renewable energy.
If you’re a member, make sure you log in and read the online version. You’ll find quite a treasure trove of articles on the subject and you’ll see mention of a strong upsurge in the number of projects starting to take place worldwide in this practice area. Striking examples of project management prowess overcoming obstacles are plentiful, especially in a very well-written article about the Danish Horns Rev 2 project. In particular, read about the way that PM Henrik Lehmann overcame the problem of risk identification for a project taking place far offshore, in icy waters with 10-foot-high waves. Lehmann knew that he didn’t know all of the risks himself and so brought together a team of 50 selected employees with the experience and competency in this area to help brainstorm and identify risk, which of course had the side benefit of gaining buy-in from a diverse set of contributing functional organizations. This is a huge project and the world’s largest offshore wind farm.
At the moment.
Turns out, this will be dwarfed in only a few years by another wind farm which will be thrice the size. Where is this new one to be, you ask? Well, the name will give it away – it’s called the London Array. And we suggest you go have a look at a brief video that will tell you all about it, right on PMI’s web page.
Go here to see that video. And the London Array project site is worth a visit as well.
The inspiring overall message of the issue is the fact that we’re at a sharp upswing in the deployment of these types of projects, “the steepest upward climb to date”, according to Gaynor Hartnell, director of policy at the Renewable Energy Association, London, England. This is the green wave in action and it sits right there – at the intersection of green and project management – an increasingly satisfying place to be.
Goodbye to a Green Project Leader
A champion of green projects passed away suddenly August 7th. Matt Simmons, well known for his views on peak oil in his book Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy apparently drown after suffering a heart attack. Here in Maine, however, he was
best known for championing green energy projects (Green By Definition from our book). He had big plans for some big projects, particularly trying to harness the ocean’s energy. He founded The Ocean Energy Institute in Rockland, Maine, whose grand opening was in July, a “think tank” focused on tidal energy. It is both a not-for-profit research facility coupled with a for-profit venture capital enterprise to fund the alternate energy.
From an article by Michael Corkery in today’s (Aug 9th) Wall Street Journal Blog, Matt Simmons is quoted as saying that, “When it comes to alternative energy, wind is perfectly commercial today. But when you try to scale it, it just doesn’t work. I suspect the cost of solar will finally come down, but you’ll never have solar be anything more than an intermittent source of electricity.” To him, the ocean was the logical place to capture energy. In the same article he is quoted as saying “The Gulf Stream is essentially the largest river in the world … and there are devices being developed that are anchored in a current and end up having a rotor that turns because of the current. It might be perfectly viable to create a floating dry dock. Or you combine the water in a boiler with ammonia, and once you have boiling you have steam, and steam powers a turbine and creates electricity. This doesn’t sound nearly as complicated as creating fuels cells, for instance, which is still a real bugaboo.”
Matt believed that “Oceans are the last energy frontier, yet we know so little about how to harness them. The Ocean Energy Institute’s mission is to quickly fill this knowledge void and let our oceans supply us the energy that fossil fuels have provided for the last hundred years,” a direct quote.
A press release today from the Institute indicated that the work of the Institute will continue. We hope so. We didn’t know him personally, but he was on our list of “get to knows” because of the potential projects he was involved with. We’ll be watching the work of the Institute, that’s for sure. Matt Simmons was 67.
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