Initial research done, what's the next step?

Now that Aalto University's exam week has passed by, the project group is back in action!

The group is now more or less done with initail individual research. We will soon present our individual findings here for you to comment on. The next step we'll take is to evaluate which energy need should be filled with what method and at which stage. For example what energy source should be used for cooking in the start-up phase (less than 50 people), biogas or LPG? When should windpower come into play? How can we heat water during winter time? What is the energy consumption and production methods during night time?

These are some of the questions we'll be attacking during these upcoming weeks. We'll try to meet some experts in the University (e.g. Jukka Paatero, Ph. D. in Energy economics and Professor Peter Lund, specialized in New and Renewable Technologies) as well as experts in the working life.

We've been given advice by Industrial Designer Outi Ugas on how to design the project in a sustainable way. One of the key things she mentioned was to figure out the meaning of this project in building TRUST in the society towards people with special needs. What sort of new business could this project bring to the area etc. Hopefully we'll have time to look into these things as well.

In three weeks time we'll be traveling to Lebanon, out there we'll hopefully have answers to our last questions and we'll move towards finalizing our project. But before that, a lot of work lies ahead...