The Amsterdam Business School (ABS), part of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), has a vacancy for a PhD candidate in Smart Energy Systems.

This PhD project concerns research into new business models and High Performance Computing (HPC) technology in Smart Energy Systems. The focus is how to make energy systems smarter using HPC with the ultimate goal to maximize the deployment of renewables, enhance the resilience of the electricity grid, improve the efficiency of the power system and decrease the costs.

The PhD candidate will work:

• investigating how HPC and ICT clouds can support the development of smart energy systems by e.g.: (1) making more accurate predictions of energy production and consumption profiles to efficiently match demand and supply just-in-time; (2) improvement of the mix of energy provider production facilities to maximize the share of renewables and minimizing the overall energy production capacity to guarantee a stable energy system; (3) energy load balancing via dynamic deferral of server workloads;
• investigating new models on: (1) how to increase the share of renewables in the mix of energy resources with stable energy prices; (2) safety and security guarantees and appropriate legal/judicial frameworks; (3) integration of local energy storage and back-up generators;
• investigating new business models in this sector.

For a more detailed project description please check the full project description.

The research will take place in close collaboration with the SURF Open Innovation Lab at SURFsara, where expertise and experimental facilities on HPC and Big Data analytics will support the conducted research.

• Master’s degree in the area of informatics, data science, or business administration with excellent grades and a demonstrable interest in ICT, simulation and modeling, cognitive science and/or business analytics;
• well-developed analytical and methodological skills, creativity, precision, and perseverance;
• the drive to publish in top-level academic journals in the field of energy and management;
• mastery of both written and spoken English

You will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months with a possibility to extend it for another 2,5 years, pending positive evaluation. As part of your contract, you will spend 20% of your time on teaching. You will be classified as PhD candidate (promovendus) in the Dutch University job-ranking system (UFO), providing a gross monthly starting salary of €2.222 in the first year (which increases to €2.840 in the final year) with an additional end-of-year bonus (8.3%) and holiday allowance (8%), in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.

What do we offer:

• a unique combination of technical and business research;
• a friendly and informal working environment;
• high-level of interaction and technical support;
• considerable scope to define the more detailed focus of the investigation within the broader realm of smart energy systems in relation with your own expertise/interest;
• access to high-end computing facilities.

Amsterdam is a very international city where almost everybody speaks and understands English.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

http://www.uva.nl/en/home

Amsterdam Business School

The Amsterdam Business School (ABS) is part of the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB) of the University of Amsterdam (UvA). The FEB provides academic programmes for more than 5,500 students and employs about 400 people. ABS has a broad portfolio of outstanding teaching and research programmes and is characterised by its international focus, the strong ties to the city of Amsterdam and its focus on several key areas such as finance, entrepreneurship, business analytics/big data, data science & computer science and business & society/CSR.uva

http://abs.uva.nl/