PhD on privacy-preserving flex forecasting and management in energy communities

The research (and teaching) activities of KU Leuven/ESAT/ELECTA cover a wide spectrum in smart energy systems and control.
The research group has been active since the 1960s and currently has 12 full-time professors and 90+ PhD students. It is active in Leuven, Genk and Ghent. ELECTA is a founding member of the KU Leuven Institute for Energy and Society. ELECTA is also one of the driving forces behind EnergyVille (www.energyville.be), which unites KU Leuven, VITO, imec and UHasselt for research on sustainable energy and intelligent energy systems.
Prof. Deconinck's team is focussing on different aspects of distributed control in cyber-physical energy systems, since the end of previous century.
In some of our earlier projects we investigated how peer-to-peer energy trading could be done in a privacy-preserving way. In this project, we will extend this work to forecasting flexibility and optimising multi-vector flexibility usage in an energy community.

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Project

This PhD research is part of the CETP-project “DigiRES”, the general objective of which is to digitally integrate multi-energy flexibility assets in regional energy systems, together with colleagues in the Netherlands and Sweden.

The PhD focus will be on privacy-preserving techniques for flexibility management applications in energy communities. These techniques include federated learning, computations over encrypted data, secret sharing, etc. Based on real-world data sources, you will focus on forecasting, multi-vector flexibility characterisation and flexibility use in energy communities and regional energy systems. Bridging domains of energy system management, data-driven machine learning, and privacy preservation, you will design and evaluate appropriate solutions, that can eventually be deployed on our smart grid lab infrastructure.

Profile

You are a highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher with a strong interest in data-driven control and optimisation of smart energy applications. Knowledge and experience with privacy-preserving techniques (COED, federated learning, etc.) are a clear advantage.

You have:

• A master’s degree in Engineering Science e.g energy, electrical, data science, ...
• Critical and creative thinking skills.
• Independence and initiative.
• Autonomy, reliability in teamwork and good communication skills.
• Excellent proficiency in English (speaking, listening and writing).

Given the funding constraints and the timeline, we prefer candidates from within the European Economic Area, and with a Master's degree from a university within the EEA .
Please indicate clearly in the motivation letter your relevant previous experience and knowledge, and your grades. At least a distinction (cum laude) level is required to start a PhD at the Arenberg Doctoral School.

Offer

• A four-year doctoral scholarship at KU Leuven's doctoral school, and a PhD in Engineering Science, if successful
• The opportunity to participate in exciting scientific projects carried out within ELECTA, in close collaboration with the academic and industrial project partners .
• Access to state-of-the-art technologies, core facilities and technical support
• The opportunity to be part of in an exciting and international research environment, engage in research collaborations and participate in international conferences
• A flexible working culture with opportunity to up to 40% remote working.
• Benefits such as health insurance, access to university sports facilities, etc.

Interested?

For more information please contact Prof. dr. ir. Geert Deconinck, tel.: +32 16 32 11 26, mail: [email protected].

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