To achieve the objectives of the Climate Agreement there is a need to rapidly increase the amount of energy that comes from solar and wind farms. In the Netherlands, there is significant interest in relevant investments. However, the lack of grid capacity in the medium voltage grid hinders the realization of new projects. Given the significant lead times and cost of medium voltage grid reinforcement, mobilizing flexibility that is available at the edges of the power system to increase the hosting capacity of the existing network by preventing or minimizing congestion is imperative. To address this challenge, you will work with a consortium of industry and academic partners as well as an energy cooperative who are aiming to develop and validate scalable optimization and control techniques to exploit distributed energy storage assets located at the low voltage grid (residential and agricultural end-users) in order to resolve congestion issues at the medium voltage grid level and enable the seamless connection of large-scale solar and wind farms.

Your tasks will include:

• Developing multi-layered distributed optimization and control algorithms for energy storage devices.
• Designing and pricing new congestion management instruments that are compatible with current legislation.
• Validating the proposed algorithms via a pilot that takes place in a congested area where several large-scale renewable generation projects are in the pipeline and involves a significant amount of distributed storage.
• Assessing the potential impact of the proposed techniques on the system under future scenarios.

You will primarily contribute to Intelligent Energy Systems research activities of the Electrical Energy Systems group. Besides research you will also have the opportunity to contribute to education within the department.

• PhD in Electrical Engineering, Operations Research, Computer Science or a related discipline with a focus on power systems and optimization/machine learning techniques.
• Ability to conduct high quality academic research, demonstrated for instance by a relevant PhD thesis and/or publication(s).
• Experience in Python programming is highly desirable.
• Ability to teach and supervise students, shown by experience or assistance in teaching and positive evaluations of these teaching efforts.
• Excellent mastering of the English language, good communication and leadership skills. Note that there is no Dutch language requirement.
• Be a team player and able to work in a dynamic, interdisciplinary context.

You must possess a comprehensive knowledge of power systems and/or electricity markets. You must have a proven ability to develop and apply quantitative decision-making methods (e.g., mathematical programming or data-driven approaches), as evidenced by a relevant PhD thesis or publications. Furthermore, familiarity with topics such as congestion management, flexibility provision, energy management, energy communities, mathematical decomposition methods, distributed optimization techniques is highly desirable.

• A meaningful job in a dynamic and ambitious university with the possibility to present your work at international conferences.
• A full-time employment for 1.5 years.
• You will have free access to high-quality training programs for research and valorization,  professional development courses for PhD students, and didactical courses of the TEACH training program.
• A gross monthly salary between € 3,557 and € 4,670 (on a fulltime basis), depending on experience and knowledge.
• Benefits in accordance with the Collective Labor Agreement of the Dutch Universities.
• A broad package of fringe benefits (including an excellent technical infrastructure, moving expenses, and savings schemes).
• Family-friendly initiatives are in place, such as an international spouse program, and excellent on-campus children day care and sports facilities.