PhD position at FME SecurEL – Incorporating distribution grids in multiscale stochastic energy system models
There is a temporary PhD position for 3 years available at the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management – Section Managerial Economics, Finance and Operation Research. The position is resident at NTNUs campus in Trondheim. This is an educational position, which will provide promising research recruits the opportunity for professional development through studies towards a PhD-degree. The position is connected to the PhD program at the Faculty of Economics and Management and the faculty will be your employer.
The PhD position will be part of the research centre FME SecurEL. The centre facilitates research for a secure, resilient, and sustainable electricity distribution grid that ensures both the security of electricity supply and a path to a net-zero-emissions society.
The PhD position will be part of FME SecurEL. The Centre will facilitate a secure, resilient, and sustainable electricity distribution grid that ensures both the security of electricity supply and a path to a net-zero-emissions society. See https://securel.no/
SecurEL is a Centre for Environment-friendly Energy Research, facilitating a secure, resilient, and sustainable electricity distribution grid that ensures both the security of electricity supply and a path to a net-zero-emissions society. SecurEL aims to develop new knowledge addressing research challenges arising from accelerated electrification and increased use of the existing grid. Reaching these goals requires strong interdisciplinary collaboration among research institutions, user partners, and experts with diverse areas of expertise.
The Centre brings together experts from fields such as electrical engineering, energy systems, information and communication technology, cybersecurity, engineering cybernetics, industrial economics, as well as humanities and social sciences, to develop effective solutions for the power grid. SecurEL is a consortium of 42 partners, including 7 research partners. The centre period is 2025-2032, and the total budget is 398 million Norwegian kroner (NOK). NTNU is represented as a partner mainly by the Department of Electric Energy (IEL) and the Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management (IØT).
Recruitment and research education is an important part of the mission of SecurEL. The PhD candidates funded by the Centre will contribute with cutting-edge knowledge and research. Overall, the Centre will directly finance 17 PhD and postdoc positions, and also have several associated PhDs from closely related projects. As a SecurEL-funded PhD candidate, you will be employed by NTNU, a university partner in the Centre, and take active part in the research activities. Through the Centre, you will have access to a forum with other PhD candidates affiliated with the Centre, and opportunities for research stays with partners, both nationally and abroad, through its international network.
Read more about the Centre and its research at the website https://www.securel.no/.
About the position
Energy system models are widely used by researchers and analysts for investigating how policies and technology developments may impact our energy futures. These models often cover large geographical areas, several energy carriers and sometimes also multiple time scales. Therefore, it is unavoidable to make trade-offs between modelling detail and computational efficiency/tractability. Local energy resources and demands are typically aggregated to country-level, while local constraints, such as distribution grids, are usually not considered at all.
This PhD will contribute to the field by exploring new methods and modelling frameworks for inclusion of distribution grids and distributed resources in multiscale energy system models with a special focus on capturing security of supply aspects of the distribution grid in the energy system modelling. The models may be multiscale in the time dimension including for example investments (years), operations (hours) and balancing (minutes). The models may also be multiscale in the geographical resolution by representing the spatial location as a country (Norway), while other locations are modelled in detail with physical location of distributed generation and grids. The modeling framework will be stochastic in order to represent variations in demand and renewable generation.
Methodologically, the project will be based on novel models and decomposition methods for multiscale stochastic problems. Examples of relevant methods may be Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming, Alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) composition and similar decomposition approaches. We are searching for candidates that have interest both in energy systems and power sector modeling and in optimization methods.
The project will be a cooperation between NTNU, SINTEF, IFE as well as the industrial partnership of the FME SecurEL.
You will report to your supervisor.
Duties of the position
• Execute a PhD project within 3 years (including obtaining own data for research, analysis and dissemination).
• Plan and execute the empirical work and data collection targeted to address the research objectives.
• Complete the necessary doctoral coursework as per NTNU’s guidelines.
• Attend project meetings and develop a collaboration network with project partners.
• Disseminate research findings through national/international academic conferences and open access scientific journals that meet the requirements for the PhD position.
Qualification requirements
• The PhD-position's main objective is to qualify for work in research positions. The qualification requirement is completion of a master’s degree or second degree (equivalent to 120 credits) in operations research and optimization or equivalent education. Applicants should have a strong academic background with a grade of B or better in terms of NTNU’s grading scale. Applicants with no letter grades from previous studies must have an equally good academic foundation.
• The position requires excellent English oral and writing skills.
In addition, the following qualifications will contribute positively to the evaluation of the applicant:
• Background and/or experience relevant to the project topic
• Scandinavian language skills
• Documented experience with stochastic optimization
• Documented experience with energy system analysis
• Good knowledge of digital tools like Julia, Python, etc.
Please read more here: https://www.jobbnorge.no/ledige-stillinger/stilling/276485
Department of Industrial Economics and Technology Management
IØT has challenging and inspiring educational programmes and research projects in the cross-disciplinary field of technology management. Through its programmes of study, IØT educates candidates with a solid technological basis in methodology and theory on how to develop and manage technologically based organisations.
Participation in, and development of, research projects in close co-operation with Norwegian industry, the department is also developing models, tools and methods for how to manage Norwegian industry.
