About the Project
CREDENCE is a US-IRELAND Centre to Centre Research & Development Partnership, which is a collaborative project funded by the US National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department for the Economy (DfE) and Science Foundation Ireland (SFI). The partners include the Energy, Power and Intelligent Control (EPIC) research cluster in School of Electronics, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EEECS) in Queen’s University Belfast (QUB), the SFI Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland (MaREI) Center that is lead by University College Cork (UCC) and collaborates with the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) in Dublin and, the NSF funded FREEDM Systems Center based at the Keystone Science Center of North Carolina State University (NCSU) with partners universities in Arizona State University, Florida State University, Florida A&M University and Missouri University of Science and Technology.
The goals and objectives of CREDENCE are to:
• Develop the communication standards for devices to be integrated into devices and systems that will be relied upon for carbon reduction from the energy system.
• Assess the impact of the trends of electrification and decentralization on the power system and discover whether there are optimum levels of decentralization and electrification in order to achieve certain carbon reduction goals, driving appropriate policy strategies.
• Understand and develop the socio-economic mechanisms for migrating to those optimal levels of electrification and decentralization successfully.
This studentship will form an integral part of the research work packages delivered collaboratively by EPIC at QUB, MaREI & ESRI at UCC and FREEDM at NCSU. This will provide an unprecedented opportunity to work closely with colleagues in the USA and Ireland, as well as interact with the industrial partners such as ABB, Eaton, Duke Energy, Schneider, Ford, Toshiba, NYPA, EirGrid, AES, SONI, Centrica, BAE Systems, Siemens, Schneider Electric, GE, SSE, ESB and many more.
The PhD candidate will be based at Queen’s University Belfast and will be expected to spend a period of time in the FREEDM Systems Centre in North Carolina State University (NCSU) and/or the SFI MaREI Centre in UCC, attend CREDENCE project meetings and International, European and National conferences.
Objectives of Project
Distributed Energy Resource Network Location Monitoring
This project will examine methods to identify the location of an appliance on the electrical network (i.e. the circuit / phase to which it is connected) by passive and active means. Time synchronised measurements will be employed to identify correlations between application consumption and the load at distribution transformers. A key aspect of this work will be the development of a simulation model which will allow various methods of signalling to be considered under a range of load scenarios.
Additionally, this project will require:
• Publication and attendance at National / European and International conferences
• Publication in leading IEEE/IET journals
• Attendance at and reporting to regular project meetings
• Use of simulation environments, including DIgSILENT, AURORAxmp, MATLAB, NRL CORE, etc., as appropriate to project.
Entry Requirements: A minimum 2.1 honours degree or equivalent in Electrical and Electronic Engineering or relevant degree (e.g. Computer Science, Engineering, and/or Mathematics/Physics) is essential. A strong mathematical background is also highly desirable, in addition to a keen interest and career aspirations in power systems and energy systems. Potential candidates should also demonstrate strong programming skills in MATLAB, CPLEX, Python or other similar.
Candidates applying from countries where the first language is not English must produce evidence of their competence through a qualification such as IELTS or TOEFL score. For a list of English Language qualifications accepted by the School and University please see the following link:
http://www.qub.ac.uk/home/StudyatQueens/InternationalStudents/EnglishLanguageRequirements/
General information: This 3 year PhD studentship, funded by the Department for the Economy Northern Ireland (DfE) under the US-Ireland R & D Partnership Programme, provides approved tuition fees and a maintenance grant of approximately £14,000 p.a. The successful applicant must be available to take up post by 30th June 2017.
Applicants must apply electronically through the Queen’s online application portal at: https://dap.qub.ac.uk/portal/
Further information available at: http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/eeecs/StudyattheSchool/PhDProgrammes
Contact details:
Supervisor Names: Prof. D John Morrow, Dr Aoife M. Foley & Dr David Laverty Tel: +44 (0)28 9097 4060/4492/4651
QUB Address: School of EEECS, Email: [Email Address Removed], [Email Address Removed] & [Email Address Removed]
Deadline for submission of applications is 2nd April 2017.
For further information on Research Area click on link below: http://www.qub.ac.uk/research-centres/EPIC/