PhD Studentship - Consideration of Environmental Features for Microgrid Dispatch Optimisation

Supervisors: Prof. Solomon Brown & Dr Smitha Gopinath

With increased penetration of renewables into electricity systems world wide the behaviour of actors within the energy system requires increased consideration of uncertainty and environmental impacts to support the wider decarbonisation effort. This work would extend the economic optimisation of grid-connected microgrid operation to include environmental features such as CO2 emissions. These features should take into account microgrid internal emissions, e.g. from the power generator, but also external emissions from grid electricity traded through energy markets. Particularly, grid emission factors for electricity should be time-dependent and should be marginal rather than averaged over the grid generation mix. Information about a time-dependent, marginal grid emission factor could be exploited by the operational flexibility of the microgrid.

Hourly bidding curves could be adapted to the dynamic profile of the emission factor improving both the microgrid and the system-wide environmental footprint. While some researchers have examined the optimisation of environmental and economic objectives for microgrid operation far less have investigated optimisation of environmental objectives with detailed modelling of bidding decisions.

The candidate will require a 1^st or 2:1 degree in Engineering, Physics, Mathematics or similar discipline with strong mathematical skills. You will join the Brown Group within the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of Sheffield. You will benefit from the world class expertise of the research group and interaction with several related research programs and will meet regularly with the sponsoring Industrial partner.

For more information please contact Prof. Brown: s.f.brown@sheffield.ac.uk

Funding:

This studentship includes a fee bursary to cover the UK (home) rate, and an annual tax-free maintenance stipend above the standard UK Research rate (£20,237 in 2024-25) for up to 3.5 years.

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