I officially began work on my project … meeting with my advisor, Professor Enzo Sauma Santis, and one of his colleagues from Edinburgh, Dr. Harry Van der Weijde. Dr. Van der Weijde is working with a PhD student, Fabián Fuentes (who is from Santiago but currently studying in Edinburgh) on the topic of community solar. In this meeting we discussed how we might be able to collaborate and harmonize our research efforts. .. We determined that it would be most fruitful to collaborate on a survey regarding community solar energy preferences. Our goal is to conduct such a survey in both Scotland and Chile, which has the potential to reveal interesting contrasts between an area that is ahead of the curve in terms of small-scale community energy (Scotland) and Chile’s incipient market. By the end of the month, we had both conducted literature reviews covering both social science techniques and community solar initiatives, and began formulating a survey draft based on our findings. At PUC, I also began attending two classes: Redes Inteligentes para Energía Sustentable and Diseño de Mecanismos de Mercado.

I’m eager to explore Chile’s parks and natural spaces. As such, this month, I took a morning hike with my roommate (a Chilean lawyer working for a human rights NGO) up Cerro Manquehue in Santiago, and was able to visit Cajon del Maipo as well as El Quisco and Isla Negra!

The month of April has found me deep in the world of social science and technology adoption. In these efforts, I have been working with Fabián Fuentes, the PhD student who
is co-advised by Dr. Sauma and Dr. Van der Weidje. Along with continuing literature

review (of solar energy preference studies, barriers to renewable energy in Chile, and established practices for survey research) we have been developing both our survey instrument, analysis approach, and sampling plan. As a small milestone, we’ve arrived at a mutual agreement to the following objectives for our work: Use a survey tool to assess respondents’ interest in participating in local solar PV initiatives in both Santiago and Edinburgh. And identify the most influential factors in (1) interest in participating in local solar PV initiatives, (2) willingness to dedicate time and/or money to such projects, and (3) willingness to collaborate with community members, and to compare these results between Chilean and Scottish respondents. We have also made significant progress towards a final set of questions to be included in our survey.

However, just as we (a team of engineers) were beginning to feel near-ready to launch a questionnaire into action, I met with researchers from the Dirección de Estudios Sociales UC, the department of sociology’s applied services unit, which has extensive expertise in survey methodologies. They were kind enough to review our survey and goals and highlight important oversights we’d made and areas for improvement from a quantitative social science point of view. With these insights, we will need to reevaluate our specific goals and survey design, in order to ensure we have valid results with minimal bias.

Course-wise, this month included an exam in my game theory economics class and several lengthy assignments in Smart Grid for Renewable Energy. Both of these courses, which are designed for undergraduates, are extremely rigorous and are giving me an appreciation for the quality of education engineering students receive at PUC.

Alongside fellow Fulbrighters, this month I also attended Santiago’s March for Science. Here, we met people who shared their desire to see a greater emphasis from government and industry on scientific research and jobs, as well as gender equality in science and engineering

While I’m loving Santiago more and more every day, I’ve also loved escaping to nearby towns and parks; this month, I climbed Cerro La Campana with a few fellow nature
lovers from Santiago, and travelled to Mendoza over the long weekend with Kate and Carly.
A few major steps that I hope to take in the near future are:

• Determining how we plan to operationalize our sampling process (define sampling frame and sampling method; determine pathways through which we can disseminate survey; assess alternatives to an online form that could be used to reach people without access to internet)
• Plan and conduct qualitative interviews to refine survey
• Finalize survey questions
• Conduct analysis of faux results