PhD Student / Research Assistant (f/m/d) as part of the MSCA EU project “inter-oPEn”, research topic: “Interactions in power electronic dominated AC-grids”

You will be part of the EU-funded Marie Skłodowska-Curie Action project inter-oPEn (“Interoperability of the Power Electronics dominated grid by openness”) as a PhD Student conducting research on the topic “Interactions in power electronic dominated AC-grids: Challenges for interoperability and controller partitioning”.

With an increasing share of power electronic assets the overall system behaviour of an integrated grid changes. With these changes, new challenges for the grid’s stability arise, induced by harmonic and transient interactions of power electronic assets, endangering not only a stable operation of the asset itself but also the overall grid stability. Goal of the potential doctoral thesis is the investigation of mentioned interactions, considering not only power electronic assets and its control design, but also the surrounded grid and its structure.

The results of the model-based investigations are meant to classify the observed interactions in terms of their potential threat to the grid stability and the corresponding parameters and conditions influencing the systems behaviour to help predicting and avoiding endangering asset and control designs. Further, the results and conclusions facilitate investigations on how these interactions could affect interoperability of several power electronic assets. Especially, the influence and the interdependence of the different stages of the converters’ control on the overall behaviour of the converter might be of interest.

The research will be conducted at the Institute of Electric Energy Systems and High-Voltage Technology (IEH) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) in Karlsruhe in close collaboration with the inter-oPEn academic and industrial partners, involving an academic and industrial secondment.

Persönliche Qualifikation

• You are an electrical engineer in the field of electric energy systems or power electronics and have a Master Degree or equivalent in electrical engineering, preferably specialized in power engineering and at least basic knowledge in control theory.
• You must not have resided or carried out your main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Germany for more than 12 months in the last 36 months.
• You have good language English skills (B2 or better)

Organisationseinheit

Contract duration

36 months

Application up to

August 15, 2024

Contact person in line-management

For further information, please contact Prof. Dr.-Ing. Thomas Leibfried, Tel. +49 721 608-42520.

Specific Requirements

Special requirements for the project funding scheme apply:

• On the date of start (likely to be Oktober 2024), you must not have lived in Germany for more than 12 of the previous 36 months, must have less than four years full-time equivalent research experience, and must not have a doctoral degree
• There is the opportunity for technical and personal skills training and participation in international research events
• You will participate in international secondments to other organisations

Candidates are asked to provide the following documentation:

• Complete CV, including two references
• Copies of academic transcripts and degree certificates (Bachelor and Master or equivalent) in English
• Letter of motivation, including the list of different Inter-Open vacancies (in other partner institutions) where the candidate is applying
• Earliest starting date

Application

Please apply via email: inter-open@ieh.kit.edu.

Vacancy number: 1273/2024

We prefer to balance the number of employees (f/m/d). Therefore, we kindly ask female applicants to apply for this job.

Recognized severely disabled persons will be preferred if they are equally qualified.