We are seeking a motivated PhD researcher to help drive the heat transition as an essential part of the energy transition. Join leading researchers and industry partners in developing novel strategies to this end.
InformationThis research project is part of the EmPowerED project, which aims to accelerate and scale up the development of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs). PEDs are urban areas that generate more energy than they consume and carbon-neutral heating and cooling is a core element of their design. The design and realization of PEDs involves (complex interactions between) societal, technical, economical and regulatory factors. EmPowerED –
Enabling Positive Energy Districts through citizen-centered socio-technical models for upscaling of the heat transition – seeks to tackle this challenge by involving key stakeholders (citizen groups, municipalities, housing associations, grid operators, technology/service providers) in the decision-making process by offering them a toolbox to explore and assess local heat solutions for PEDs. The EmPowerED project involves in total 11 PhD positions at several universities, focusing on different aspects of positive energy districts. The project also involves a large range of project partners, e.g. municipalities, building corporations and technology suppliers. At the core of the EmPowerED project are 4 case studies in different municipalities (the cities of Groningen, Nijmegen, Eindhoven and Tilburg).
The PhD project in this vacancy contributes to the development of the above EmPowerED toolbox by developing simulation models for individual physical components of a PED to be used as building blocks for integrated PED models, focusing on the residential heating system. This encompasses primarily thermal components like heat exchangers, heat-pumps, short-term (e.g. daily) and long-term (e.g. seasonal) heat-storage systems, aqua-thermal and geothermal heat sources and waste heat recovery (e.g., industrial waste heat reuse, sewage treatment plant) as components in a 5th generation district heating network. The key weakness of most models currently available and in use is their oversimplified description of physical, dynamic and nonlinear behavior. The principal goal of the PhD project is to develop component models with a greater physical accuracy and predictive capability by employing state-of-the-art methods for the following two modelling approaches:
- reduced-order models (ROMs) and input-output models derived from high-fidelity Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) models;
- data-based models determined from training/calibration data by system/parameter identification and machine learning.
The key challenge is striking a balance between, on the one hand, modelling the physical, dynamic and nonlinear behavior of the components with sufficient physical accuracy to ensure high predictive capability and, on the other hand, keeping the models sufficiently “compact” (i.e. algorithmically small and computationally efficient) to enable incorporation in integrated PED models. The development of these compact models will involve collaboration with several partners within the EmPowerED project to address a range of issues including e.g. generating training/calibration/validation data for models, their implementation into integrated PED models, providing end-user feedback on functionality. The different sub-models will be integrated and validated based on data from the use cases and experiments.
Your Working EnvironmentYou will be appointed to the Section Energy Technology of the Department of Mechanical Engineering of the Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). You will join a lively community of internationally renowned interdisciplinary energy researchers in a collaborative project with the TU/e and external partners. Our department hosts a diverse group of people from different countries and disciplines, and we welcome candidates that contribute to and enjoy this diversity. We expect that as part of your PhD you will assume a pro-active role in the interaction and collaboration with researchers both within and beyond the EmPowerED project, as well as with the other project partners involved in EmPowerED (mainly from municipalities and building sector).