The California - Denmark Renewable Energy Summer Workshop is a collaborative initiative between the University of California at Santa Cruz, the University of California at Davis and the Danish Universities, which students get academic course credit at their home institutions. This year the program is in its fourth year, the first and third years were held in Denmark, while the second and this fourth year in California. For the first three weeks in August, fifteen students and eight professors from Denmark and California came together to learn about and conduct research on the challenges of a rapid transition to a renewable energy society. The students come from a multitude of disciplines and the aim of the program is to train future policymakers, business leaders, scientists, and engineers in understanding renewable energy from a systems perspective that takes the technological, economic, environmental, and social aspects of climate change solutions. The first ten days of the program took place at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the last nine days were at the University of California at Davis. All students lived on campus except for a few local students whose residency was within few miles of campus. The important aspect of the program is to give the students and researchers an insight into the ongoing research in Green Tech companies in Northern California. In order to meet such a goal, the students attended a two day workshop on "The Road to a 100% Renewable Energy System" held in Silicon Valley which consisted of participants from academia, industry, national laboratories, and several countries. In addition, the students participated in touring a variety of companies in the Bay area, such as, Solyndra, Makani Power, Tesla Motors, and Sustainability Base at NASA Ames in Mountain View. Additionally, the students attended lectures given by participating faculty and guest speakers, and participated in hands-on activities. In the beginning of the program, the students were assigned to work on a project of proposing a 100% Sustainable Energy Community. The choice of size and type of community was left to the students to decide. In groups of five, the students delivered proposals and made final presentations. At the end of the program, all the students were asked to answer a questionnaire and provide us with feedback. More details about the program can be found at the following web-site: localrenew.soe.ucsc.edu. The first two authors of this paper are previous participants and coordinators who are committed to excellence of this program.
