Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e, https://www.tue.nl/en/) is one of Europe's top technological universities, situated at the heart of a most innovative high-tech region, with a wealth of collaborations with industry and academic institutes. In 2017, TU/e was ranked 15th in Europe in the Times Higher Educational World University ranking for Engineering and Technology. TU/e has around 3,000 employees and 2,300 PhD students (half of which international, representing about 70 nationalities).
Research Programme DescriptionThe envisioned research is part of the research program Intelligent Energy Systems (IES) performed within the Electrical Energy Systems (EES) group of TU/e. Within the IES program, research is conducted into operation and planning of future sustainable energy systems, with an emphasis on electricity systems, markets and systems integration. This research is performed in two research labs: the Digital power and energy systems lab (EES DigiPES lab) and the Electricity markets and power system optimization lab (EES EMPDO lab). The former focuses on intelligent energy network research, including: demand management and flexibility, digital twinning, data analytics, smart grid ICT architectures and systems integration in multi energy systems. The latter specializes in electricity market design (centralized & decentralized), market products & system services to integrate new technologies, forecasting, market participation strategies and risk management, large-scale, distributed, multi-objective optimization techniques applied to energy markets and power systems and AI for optimization and control in power and energy systems. The EES group has strong ties with industry both nationally and internationally, with several part-time industry researchers working in the group and a large group of strategic collaboration partners.
Recently, the Electrical Energy Systems group received grants for nationally-funded projects in Intelligent Electricity Systems. Therefore, this group currently has multiple vacancies in this field.
We are currently looking for researchers with strong computer science, modelling & simulation, and research software development skills that want to develop cutting-edge knowledge and software for the
energy transition.. The focus of the work will be on the application of intelligent software approaches (distributed control systems, distributed optimization, market mechanisms, multi-scale modelling, etc.), in electrical power systems (energy system flexibility coordination, local energy markets, capacity & congestion management, etc.).
PhD position: Designing and modelling future systems of energy systemsThis PhD research is part of the DEMOSES project, which aims to develop a suite of coupled energy system models for the support of decisions of market parties, network operators and the government in the development of an efficient and reliable integrated, low-carbon Dutch future energy sector. Therefore, in this project, technologies for coupling models, such as multi-scale model integration and co-simulation, will be developed and applied to integrated energy systems, as the currently available models are not sufficiently capable of modelling an integrated energy system, e.g. with increased operational interaction between energy carriers and energy intensive sectors, such as transport and industry. DEMOSES is part of the
ESI-FAR Energy System Integration Program of the Dutch Science Foundation. In DEMOSES, three PhD Researchers and two eScience Engineers will cooperate with each other and with industry and knowledge partners. The aim of this PhD Research will be:
- To research advanced multi-scale modelling techniques and their merits in combining energy-system models for different system levels improving individual model accuracies and the descriptive power of the full model set.
- To develop a method and tools for multi-model energy systems integration simulations, based on co-simulation and multi-scale modelling, in a methodologically rigorous way.
- To research the opportunities for TSO-DSO integration to handle network congestion on multiple network levels using flexibility in the distribution grid responding to wholesale/balancing market prices and DSO incentives.
The third bullet is aimed at validating the results of the first two.
The position is supervised by prof.dr. J.K. Kok, dr. H.P. Nguyen and dr. C. Papadimitriou.
Working ContextThe PhD researcher will work in close collaboration with experts and researchers from external industry and knowledge institutes, including the Dutch system operators for both distribution and transmission, two energy suppliers, an applied research institute and technical universities. Within the EES research group, and within the DEMOSES Consortium, the researcher will work in an scientific team with expertise in energy systems modelling, co-simulation, multi-scale modelling, uncertainty quantification and scientific software engineering.