TRAINING
Innovative net-zero carbon future fuels projects in Australia In 2021, the Future Fuels CRC proposed the topic for the University of Melbourne’s annual Case Competition. The results exceeded all expectations.
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ngineering students and information technology students from the university formed multidisciplinary teams to take part in the case competition. In 2021, the task was to pitch for an innovative net-zero carbon future fuels project in Australia. The pitch had to include a conceptual design of appropriate size that serviced at least one of these target end-user groups (industrial, commercial, residential or transport) and leveraged existing gas or electricity networks. The design aimed to deliver cost-effective, safe, reliable net-zero carbon energy. The entries had to include projections for future supply and demand, estimates of revenues, costs and funding contributions and any key assumptions made – for example, technological developments. All this was to be presented in a competitive pitch to a judging panel made up of some of the most experienced executives in the energy industry. Coordinating the Case Competition for the Future Fuels CRC was Benjy Lee who has considerable experience in making pitches to secure project funding from ARENA and similar bodies. He was amazed at the students’ achievement. “The level of work they produced was industry standard and even better than industry standard,” Benjy says. “It was beyond my expectations. It showed industry can learn from what the students were producing from a technical perspective, and around the use of communication, especially the visual communication.”
Student experience Mechanical engineering student Jacqui Zhu (Team JJ and CAL) entered because she wanted to challenge herself and because she was interested in the energy sector. The future fuels aspect of the case competition was a drawcard for her as it was for mechanical engineering student Shawn Ingle (Lime Engineering team) who liked the challenge as well as finding out about the fuels of the future. “This has definitely been the most rewarding case competition I’ve been involved with,” Shawn says. “I just learned such an incredible amount. I really enjoyed working with the team.”
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"It was beyond my expectations. It showed industry can learn from what the students were producing from a technical perspective, and around the use of communication, especially visual communication." Both Jacqui and Shawn agreed that one of the best things about the case competition was the opportunity to work with people from different backgrounds. While university students often work in groups as a part of course work and assessment, it is usually groups made up of people from the same unit or course. They almost never get to work with engineers from other disciplines. In this case the teams were multidisciplinary, and that doesn’t happen often. “That’s a very rare chance,” Jacqui says. “The whole experience was valuable and eyeopening, especially learning how others solve problems. I never really realised that people approach things so differently.” Like Jacqui, Shawn found this aspect one of the most rewarding as well. “We seldom get a chance to work with students from other disciplines,” he says. “This was quite unique in that regard. Different types of engineers look at things from even more different types of perspectives.” Having a previous interest in energy, Jacqui enjoyed exploring the new information that was available to students in the case competition. “I wasn’t aware hydrogen was such a big thing in Australia,” she says. “All of the people on our team were pretty new to the energy sector.”
The pitch The pitch was a real challenge, but the teams put in hours of research into future fuels, how to make a business case and especially what to include and what to exclude. And it was difficult: to propose a new project in two A4 pages with an additional two pages of information and persuade some of the most senior people in the industry to back it. In eight minutes. “We just had to get to the point, be precise and be very structured as well,” Jacqui says. “It really got us to think about what was important and what wasn’t important.” The Australian Pipeliner | March 2022
Team JJ and CAL initially divided up the work with each team member taking on an aspect of the project where they had some knowledge. Preparation involved researching how to make a business case and how to persuasively communicate, learning how to work effectively as a team as well as learning as much as possible about the subject matter of future fuels. It is a considerable amount of extra work that is not part of the regular course work. But Shawn said it was worth every moment, and he would encourage all other students to enter the competition. “I’d definitely recommend it,” he says. “I learned a huge amount from it and really had a great experience. I gained so much more out of it than I put into it.” The case competition developed and honed skills for the teams which will be a significant benefit to them in their future, and coincidentally will be very much valued by their future employers. Top of Jacqui’s list were problem solving, teamwork, communication, presentation skills and leadership, while Shawn added to that list critical thinking and creativity. Communication skills were particularly called upon in the development of the pitches. The multidisciplinary team members all came from different backgrounds and, although mostly engineers, they didn’t speak the same engineering language. Participants first had to learn how to communicate with each other and then perfect their pitches so that the judges would understand. Shawn found the teamwork and other connections made during the competition to be very valuable. “I most valued the connections and the relationships I was able to build,” he says. “It was really interesting to engage with the judging panel and learn from their experiences.” Shawn was a member of the wining team, Lime Engineering, which designed an advanced biofuels refinery for Townsville. Benjy said this project was
