:: Young Expert Inspires Children at Energy Challenge       13/07/04

One of Inverness based renewable energy company Wavegen’s youngest employees will be inspiring school children to follow a career in renewable energy at the Energy Challenge 2004.

Rory Hutcheson, 25, will travel to Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University for three days on 20th July to give expert advice to up to seventy 14 and 15 year old students.

He will also help a group devise a model to provide power to a fictitious island off the west coast.

“Energy Challenge 2004 will be an excellent chance to introduce young people to renewable energy and to give them some good hands-on engineering experience,” said Rory.

“As Project Engineer at Wavegen, the company behind the world’s first grid connected wave power station, I can show others that this is an exciting and dynamic industry that attracts young people.”

Pupils from all over the UK will be given an unrivalled insight into the workings, challenges and opportunities facing the energy industry.

The group will work with Rory and other young energy experts from the UK’s leading companies to design and build projects that could have an impact on the government’s targets to ensure that ten per cent of electricity is generated from renewable sources by 2010.

Rory explained why he thinks Energy Challenge is an important event for the next generation:

“Fossil fuels will eventually run out and the need for electricity to be generated from renewable sources is rapidly increasing. It is necessary for our future engineers to become interested in, and realise the importance of, renewable energy.

“The Energy Challenge provides the perfect opportunity for the country’s up and coming engineers to gain a valuable insight into the world of renewables, hopefully inspiring them to follow a career in the industry.”

Rory graduated from Strathclyde University in 2000 with a degree in Naval Architecture and Offshore Engineering.

He immediately found employment as Project Engineer at Wavegen and remains a key member of the team, working primarily at the company’s state of the art wave tank testing facility in Inverness.

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For more information contact Natalie Buxton at Platform PR on 01463 783018 or 07900 917141.

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