EST&P student Raafe Khan and team are finalists in the 2016 USAEE Case Competition

The United States Association for Energy Economics (USAEE) in collaboration with NRG Energy and the Ministry of Energy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) organized a case study competition for students to develope a solution to solve the energy crisis in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia by developing utility scale solar - this would further help them as a nation to meet their climate commitments and foreign policy directives, in addition, boost oil exports which was previously used to generate electricity. 

The Pittsburgh Pascals, a group of five E&TIM and EST&P master’s students at Carnegie Mellon, have been selected to present their idea to an esteemed panel of judges, at the 2016 USAEE conference in Tulsa, OK on October 23-26, 2016. They are one of the top three teams to be selected to present at the conference out of more than 100 submissions. 

The Pittsburgh Pascals started working together in early January 2016 on techno-economic feasibility of renewable technology in the energy space. During their research, they developed a blueprint of how the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia can achieve its climate and foreign policy goals by phasing out oil based electricity production and subsequently deploying utility scale solar.

Pittsburgh Pascals Team Members:

• Raafe Khan, EST&P master's student
• Pritham Aravind, E&TIM master's student
• Stephanie Beels, E&TIM master's student
• Suyash Kela, E&TIM master's student
• Apratim Vidyarthi, E&TIM master's student

Good luck to the team, bring home a win!