Successfully completed a placement year with AES Corporation where I gained valuable experience and learned a lot about the energy industry. My role was titled chemical undergraduate and I spent a lot of time at both of AES’s sites in Northern Ireland giving me valuable knowledge about both a coal fired power station and more up to date technology in combined cycle gas turbines. Key Experience Gained:• Knowledge of the various pieces of equipment and processes found in a power plant.• Assisted with management of Health, Safety and Environmental systems including COSHH, confined space work and environmental monitoring.• Completed condition monitoring and sampling of the water production facilities, boilers, steam turbines, cooling and waste waters. • Was involved in a boiler cleaning project and a water treatment project comparing the price of producing demineralised water across a number of AES’s sites.• Developed my communication and interpersonal skills working as part of team and with different departments to solve problems when they arose. • Improved my technical and laboratory skills through sampling, analysis and interpretation of all power station boiler waters, cooling waters, fuels, gases, chemicals and lubrication oils.• Considerable time was spent updating the reverse osmosis P&ID diagrams after the successful installment of variable speed drives.