Doctoral student in “Autonomous Decentralized Energy Market Design and Analytics”

Project description

Third-cycle subject: Electrical Engineering

The challenge:
The electrical power grid is undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by increased digitalization, deregulation, and widespread deployment of renewable energy resources and flexibility assets. Local energy communities and peer-to-peer trading platforms promise to leverage this transformation to unlock economic and societal value by enabling prosumers to exchange energy directly, increasing flexibility, autonomy, and fairness in electricity access. However, realizing these markets at scale in real power grids is hindered by major challenges: the computational complexity of operating large-scale decentralized markets, the uncertainty from renewable generation, and ensuring that decentralized market outcomes remain operationally feasible, system-wide efficient, as well as fair for heterogeneous participants. Addressing these challenges requires new mathematical models and algorithms that blend optimization, game theory, and control with data-driven learning methods.

Your role:
The Division of Decision and Control Systems is seeking an exceptional doctoral student to conduct research at the intersection of optimization, learning, and game theory, with the goal of developing the foundations of next-generation autonomous and decentralized energy markets. The project addresses both fundamental and computational challenges, spanning the development of stochastic models for decentralized energy markets, decentralized and learning-enhanced market clearing algorithms, and fair-by-design pricing strategies. The research will address one or more of the following topics:

• Stochastic and data-driven modelling of peer-to-peer energy trading
• Learning-to-Optimize (L2O) for large-scale multi-agent systems
• Bilevel games and mechanism-design approaches to fair pricing
• Design and analysis of decentralized energy markets

The doctoral candidate will join the research group of Assistant Prof. Giuseppe Belgioioso.

Supervision: Assistant Prof. Giuseppe Belgioioso and Prof. Henrik Sandberg are proposed to supervise the doctoral student. Decisions are made on admission

Admission requirements

To be admitted to postgraduate education (Chapter 7, 39 § Swedish Higher Education Ordinance), the applicant must have basic eligibility in accordance with either of the following:

• passed a second cycle degree (for example a master's degree), or
• completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 second-cycle higher education credits, or
• acquired, in some other way within or outside the country, substantially equivalent knowledge

In addition to the above, there is also a mandatory requirement for English equivalent to English B/6.

Selection

In order to succeed as a doctoral student at KTH you need to be goal oriented and persevering in your work. During the selection process, candidates will be assessed upon their ability to:

• independently pursue his or her work
• collaborate with others,
• have a professional approach and
• analyze and work with complex issues.
• Selected candidates must be able to provide contact information to at least one academic or professional reference.
• The candidate must be able to demonstrate high motivation for doctoral studies.

After the qualification requirements, great emphasis will be placed on personal skills. 

Target degree: Doctoral degree

Information regarding admission and employment

Only those admitted to postgraduate education may be employed as a doctoral student. The total length of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education in four years' time. An employed doctoral student can, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within their role, e.g. training and administration. A new position as a doctoral student is for a maximum of one year, and then the employment may be renewed for a maximum of two years at a time. In the case of studies that are to be completed with a licentiate degree, the total period of employment may not be longer than what corresponds to full-time doctoral education for two years.

As a doctoral student, you receive part of a workplace with many employee benefits and monthly salary according to KTH’s Doctoral student salary agreement. Read more about Doctoral studies (PhD) | KTH | Sweden.

Union representatives

Contact information for union representatives.

Doctoral Students`network (Students’ union on KTH Royal Institute of Technology)

Contact information for doctoral section.

To apply for the position

Apply for the position and admission through KTH's recruitment system. It is the applicant’s responsibility to ensure that the application is complete in accordance with the instructions in the advertisement.

Applications must be received at the last closing date at midnight, CET/CEST (Central European Time/Central European Summer Time).

Applications must include the following elements:

• Copies of diplomas and grades from previous university studies and certificates of fulfilled language requirements (see above). Translations into English or Swedish if the original document is not issued in one of these languages.Copies of originals must be certified.
• CV including your relevant professional experience and knowledge, eventual publications, and name of at least one professional reference.
• Motivation letter with a brief description of why you want to pursue research studies, about what your academic interests are and how they relate to your previous studies and future goals. (Maximum 1 pages long).

Other information

For information about processing of personal data in the recruitment process.

It may be the case that a position at KTH is classified as a security-sensitive role in accordance with the Protective Security Act (2018:585). If this applies to the specific position, a security clearance will be conducted for the applicant in accordance with the same law with the applicant's consent. In such cases, a prerequisite for employment is that the applicant is approved following the security clearance.

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Disclaimer: In case of discrepancy between the Swedish original and the English translation of the job announcement, the Swedish version takes precedence.

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