Several industrial areas are striving to become hubs for circularity by promoting industrial symbioses to prevent or reduce waste streams, prioritizing resource efficiency, and maximizing renewable energy use. This PhD project will focus on managing energy production and consumption within a hub for circularity, and their link to energy markets as well as other processes and resources available in the area. The ultimate aim is to reduce the consumption of non-renewable resources for energy production and maximize the synergy effects of industrial processes (e.g., recovery of waste heat, district heating, production and use of hydrogen from renewable energy sources).
The successful applicant will join the Industrial Engineering and Business Information Systems (IEBIS) section of the High-tech Business & Entrepreneurship Department (HBE) at the Faculty of Behavioural Management and Social Sciences (BMS).
Background
Despite the ongoing efforts of the European Union policies, heavily industrialized clusters are lagging in the implementation of
Industrial Symbiosis (IS) to transit to more resource- and energy-efficient setups. To advance IS implementation, a promising future research direction is
Hubs for Circularity (H4C). H4C provide spaces where diverse actors, such as businesses, governments, researchers, and civil society, collaborate to accelerate the net-zero
Circular Economy (CE) transition. UT acquired the large-scale Horizon Europe project entitled
"Sustainable Circular Economy Transition: from Industrial Symbiosis to Hubs for Circularity: IS2H4C”. IS2H4C will deliver a systemic approach to sustainable CE transition, helping to materialise Sustainable Development Goals.
Our focus? Resource efficiency, IS matchmaking, Life Cycle Assessment, renewable energy, waste prevention, and innovative circular technologies, through an integrated approach combing physical and digital
H4C. Ensuring community and government support, sustainable business and financial models, and respect for our planet is paramount.
Our vision? Make IS2H4C the blueprint for Europe's sustainable future and promote H4C as a reference sustainable regional development model. We're starting in four
H4C pilot sites across the Netherlands, Spain, Germany, and Türkiye, collaborating with 35 partners from nine European countries.
Join us! UT is hiring six PhD students for
IS2H4C, each with unique roles and qualifications. Be part of an interdisciplinary team shaping the future of
CE and
IS2H4C while advancing your research.
Key takeaways
During the project, the PhD candidate will perform research on the following tasks:
- Investigate and optimize the energy management of the hub and its participants;
- Model and optimize the interactions of the hub or individual hub participants with national energy markets;
- Develop models and algorithms to optimize energy flows within the hub to reduce costs and increase environmental sustainability;
- Include concepts of industrial symbiosis in the optimization to unlock collaboration between stakeholders and foster circularity;
- Model the factors of uncertainty (e.g., energy prices, heating demand, production from renewable energy units) using scenarios, forecasts, or stochastic processes;
- Incorporate uncertainty into the decision-making models by developing stochastic optimization approaches such as stochastic programming and reinforcement learning.