Renewable Energy Alumni: Rouzbeh Siavashi

Tell us a bit about your background?

I’m from small coastal city in south of Iran with hot and humid weather. I lived, studied and worked in my home town for 24 years. However, after 24 years living in the same city, I thought that it would be nice to experience other countries. At some points of our lives, we all need to be courageous and ambitious to challenge established truths and dare to move into the unknown.

After searching for possible countries based on my background, I finally decided to come to Norway. I heard two things about Norway; six months of a year are dark and snowy, and there are polar bears in some cities. These two factors determined my destiny and I set off to Norway to start my master’s degree in marine technology (marine structures) at NTNU.

After two years of determination and hard work, I couldn’t find any relevant jobs because of the crisis in the oil and gas industry in 2014. But as I fell in love with the polar bears, I decided to change my direction and study renewable energy instead.

Why did you choose to study the master in energy at UiB? Moreover, why did you choose your specialization?

We need to protect our environment and the first step is to move faster towards renewable energy and sustainability and stop to pollute our environment. I decided to study renewable energy partly because of the situation that I just mentioned, and partly because I want to protect my beloved polar bears from extinction. I studied wind energy because it allowed me to combine my background in structural engineering with wind energy in my master thesis. Moreover. The reason why I chose to study here at UiB is because it is one of few well-known universities in Norway which offer this degree, and also there are profound professors which I could learn a lot from at the Geophysical Institute.

What was your master thesis about?

Development of offshore wind turbines shows a clear shift from the fixed-bottom to the floating turbines. The reason for such tendency is due to the fact that moving towards the deep ocean will substantially limit the feasibility of using fixed-bottom wind turbines.

In my master thesis, I performed a study to better understand the sensitivity of the structural responses to various environmental parameters. The focus was on investigating the structural responses of two spar-buoy floating offshore wind turbines, i.e. Hywind Demo (2.3 MW) and OC3-Hywind (5 MW).

Which advice would you give to the current master students at UiB?

Select the topic of your master thesis based on your interests, and do not focus too much on increasing your chances of getting a job after you graduate. You will learn a lot more through your master thesis if you enjoy working on it.

How do you think your master studies can be used in your future career?

I’m pretty sure that my master studies will be very useful in my future career, as my ultimate goal is to be a structural engineer in designing and modeling wind turbines.

I got a sound knowledge base through my studies, and I appreciate the way of thinking and gathering valid information to solve problems through my master thesis. By having these two pillars as a basis, I can develop my skills properly further on in my career.

Could you tell us a bit about your current job?

I’m currently working as a structural engineer at Aker Solutions, and hope to move to wind energy projects as soon as possible. Luckily, Aker Solutions took some steps towards offshore wind energy lately.