PhD Studentships in System Services in 100 % Renewable Grids

Scholarship overview

  • Degree level

    Postgraduate doctoral

  • Value

    Tuition fees at the Home rate (or a contribution for Overseas fees) and stipend of £19,668 per annum

  • Number of awards

    4

  • Academic year

    2023/2024

  • Tuition fee status

    Home, Overseas

  • Mode of study

    Full time

  • Available to

    Prospective students

  • Application deadline

    17/03/2023 Closed

  • Additional information

    m.omalley@imperial.ac.uk

  • Available to applicants in the following departments

    • Electrical and Electronic Engineering

Eligibility criteria

Essential Requirements:

Applicants should have a good first degree or a Master's degree (or other equivalent experience). Suitable backgrounds for these PhD positions include but are not limited to power engineering, mathematics, computing and energy economics.

Funding:

There are four studentships available. Although both overseas and home students are eligible to apply for these studentships, successful overseas candidates would need to cover the difference between home and overseas fees as the studentships will cover Home rate fees only, a stipend of approximately £19,668 per year (tax-free) for three and a half years, support of research expenses and travel to collaborators and conferences.

Please note: This scholarship is not available to continuing students.

Course specific information

Applicants should have a good first degree or a Master's degree (or other equivalent experience). Suitable backgrounds for these PhD positions include but are not limited to power engineering, mathematics, computing and energy economics.

Application process

Please click here to apply. Course code: Electrical Engineering Research H6ZX. The application should also include a cover letter and your CV.

Full guidance on application process is available here. Any further queries regarding the application process should be directed to Miss Emma Rainbow e.rainbow@imperial.ac.uk.

For informal enquiries, please contact Prof Mark O'Malley (m.omalley@imperial.ac.uk).

NB: In the application, the proposed research supervisor should be Prof Mark O'Malley to indicate that the application is for this post.

Additional information

Position Summary:

Applications are invited for four PhD studentships, to be undertaken at Imperial College London (Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department) as part of the project System Services in 100% Renewable Grids. The project is funded by the Leverhulme Professorship held by Professor Mark O'Malley and aims to investigate services needed in 100% renewable electricity grids. The efficacy of the services will be assessed across multiple objectives for the electric grid including but not limited to reliability, cost-effectiveness, affordability, and resiliency. As part of the project, emerging resources enabled by the digitalization and hybridization of energy systems will be modelled and their contribution to existing and proposed services will be studied to identify any potential revisions to resource participation models.

The project team will include Professor Mark O'Malley (Leverhulme Professor), Dr Elina Spyrou (Leverhulme Lecturer), four post-doctoral Research Associates, four pre-doctoral Research Assistants, and four PhD students. The team is aligned to the Global Power System Transformation (G-PST) initiative and its Research Agenda.

Duties and responsibilities:

The responsibilities include defining the research questions and plan, reviewing literature and conducting independent research, reporting progress and disseminating results in high-impact journals, conferences and other gatherings. The successful candidates will be based at Imperial but will also travel regularly to coordinate with the partners in the G-PST. Suitable backgrounds for these PhD positions include but are not limited to power engineering, mathematics, computing and economics.

Summary of Project:

As the penetration of renewable resources in electricity grids pushes towards 100%, services need to be redefined around the new resources in a way that ensures resilience is achieved at lowest cost. This is a challenge requiring the coordination of evolving technical needs and capabilities with economics and hard to define societal reliability and resiliency needs. This exciting mix of issues is made further challenging by the pace of change and the trend in digitalization of the entire energy systems (including grids) that is happening in parallel.

Applicants should be aware that there are also two Research Assistant (pre-doctoral) posts we are advertising for at the moment which will run in parallel with these studentships and will be part of the research team.

 

Contact

If you have any additional questions, please contact us at m.omalley@imperial.ac.uk.