PhD Scholarship in Impact and Scalability of Advanced Controls for Energy Demand Flexibility in Buildings

Technical University of Denmark

In collaboration with Chalmers University of Technology (Chalmers), the Technical University of Denmark (DTU) offers a new PhD position (3 years), “Impact and Scalability of Advanced Controls for Energy Demand Flexibility in Buildings”. The PhD candidate will be supervised by supervisors from DTU and Chalmers. This project will integrate energy technology, building physics, HVAC systems, and computer science and control systems architecture, advancing all the above disciplines.

Building energy flexibility is an important resource for balancing and load shifting in energy networks, especially where variable renewable energy sources are involved. Emerging digital and cyber-physical systems technologies are an integral component of grid interactive efficient buildings. Through advanced control and operation of building HVAC systems, these technologies support both energy efficiency and flexible demand objectives. Model predictive control (MPC), which involves physics-based building energy models, and reinforcement learning (RL), which is data-driven, are two powerful control techniques. MPC techniques are well-established, while RL techniques are gaining popularity due to increasingly available sensor and meter infrastructure, affordable computational resources, and advanced modeling algorithms. MPCs excel in handling constrained optimizations and new operational conditions, whereas RLs offer computational efficiency and the ability to handle uncertainties. This project aims to identify promising RL-MPCs for application and upscaling in real-life building management settings.

As PhD candidate you will contribute to SEEDS, a research and innovation project funded by the European Commission, and a large global expert network under the IEA EBC Annex 96 - Grid Integrated Control of Buildings.

Responsibilities and qualifications

The project's primary objective is to enhance the energy flexibility of buildings by employing advanced data-driven energy management techniques. A few available studies indicate that RL-MPC control strategies can result in significant savings in operational energy management for a building. However, the impact and scalability of these results for the large variety of building stock are unknown.

The required selection criteria include:

• Knowledge of building physics and HVAC system
• Experience in advanced controls (e.g., RL, MPC)
• Programming knowledge (e.g., Python, R, MATLAB)
• Experience in built environment monitoring
• Fluent English skills, both written and spoken. Ability to publish research results in high-reputation international journals

Personal characteristics

• Confidence in working independently and in teams
• Ability and willingness to work in inter- and transdisciplinary teams
• Critical thinking

You must have a two-year master's degree (120 ECTS points) or a similar degree with an academic level equivalent to a two-year master's degree.

Application procedure

To apply, please read the full job advertisement by clicking the 'Apply' button. Further information: Associate Professor Rongling Li and www.construct.dtu.dk.