PhD Position Energy Data Sharing for City-Level Policy Making Using Digital Twins

The Delft University of Technology is hiring a doctoral candidate on the subject of “Energy data sharing for city-level policy making using digital twins”. The PhD position is a part of the FEDERATE NWO project.

The research project will investigate data sharing architectures for energy data sharing between citizens, local companies and municipalities, compatible with digital twins that municipalities use. The work involves designing of ontologies and knowledge graphs and their integration with digital twins of municipalities and other tools that could be used for data collection from citizens and companies.

This is a four-year doctoral appointment. You will be supervised by Dr. Milos Cvetkovic. You will be a member of the section Intelligent Electrical Power Grids in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science. The project will offer opportunities to collaborate with industrial partners but also with academics from other disciplines. Within the team, we strive to develop methods that are mathematically rigorous and have near-term application potential. We are strong supporters of open science (publishing, source code, data). You will also be expected to assist in teaching activities (student supervision, labs) related to your subject area.

• Hours per week: 40
• FTE: 1

Municipal policy makers are making city decarbonization and sustainability policies using digital twins that rely on fragmented, partial and incomplete data. The data mostly comes from public sources, such as CBS (Central Bureau for Statistics) and through time consuming and costly data collection initiatives initiated by municipalities. However, this is insufficient to provide a high-resolution picture that the policy makers need. In 2026, a new Energy Law enacted in the Netherlands that provisions easier energy data sharing among different parties including municipalities and their citizens and local companies. Although it unlocks new possibilities of data sharing among these actors, this law is yet to become operationalized in the data sharing processes of municipalities.

About the department

The research in the Department of Electrical Sustainable Energy is inspired by the technical, scientific, and societal challenges originating from the transition toward a more sustainable society and focuses on three areas:

• DC Systems, Energy Conversion and Storage (DCE&S)
• Photovoltaic Materials and Devices (PVMD)
• Intelligent Electrical Power Grids (IEPG)
• High Voltage Technologies (HVT)

The department provides expertise across the entire energy system chain and hosts extensive research facilities, including high-voltage testing laboratories, DC grids testing environments, and large-scale RTDS infrastructure for real-time simulation of future electrical power systems, AC/DC protection, and wide-area monitoring and protection.

The Intelligent Electrical Power Grids (IEPG) group, headed by Prof. Peter Palensky, focuses on the future evolution of electrical power systems. The group develops advanced power technologies and intelligent control approaches to enable reliable, efficient, stable, affordable, and sustainable energy systems with increasing levels of distributed and renewable generation.

Job requirements

We are looking for a candidate that already has an MSc degree in Computer Science, Electricical Engineering, Mathematics, or a similar field. They have demonstrated working proficiency in programming. They have excellent analytical skills and solid basis in one or more of the following: knowledge graphs, knowledge representation, data engineering, model-driven software engineering, data space architectures, etc. Idealy, they have already demonstrated high inclination towards modeling of socio-technical systems and processes, and they have worked in large projects with many partners. The ideal candidate is open minded, curious and creative.

The PhD will develop new science, write scientific papers and publish them in journals and conferences, work on deliverables of the FEDERATE project, attend project meetings and work alongside project partners, complete the graduate school requirements of TU Delft and write the PhD dissertation by the end of the project.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)

Delft University of Technology is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society.

Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science

The Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science (EEMCS) brings together three scientific disciplines. Technology such as the electricity grid, which our faculty is helping to make completely sustainable and future-proof. We are developing the chips and sensors of the future, whilst also setting the foundations for the software technologies to run on this new generation of equipment – which of course includes AI. We educate innovative engineers and have excellent labs and facilities that underline our strong international position. In total, more than 1000 employees and 4,000 students work and study in this innovative environment.

Conditions of employment

Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1,5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2,5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from €3204 - €4051 gross per month, from the first year to the fourth year based on a fulltime contract (38 hours), plus 8% holiday allowance and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%.

As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills. The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

TU Delft is committed to make your move as smooth as possible if you need to relocate to the Netherlands for this job. Coming to Delft Service offers information to help you prepare your relocation and organises events to help you settle in the Netherlands and expand your social network in Delft. A Dual Career Programme is available to support your accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a certain level to ensure that the candidate is able to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis.

As part of knowledge security, TU Delft conducts a risk assessment during the recruitment of personnel. The assessment takes place at the final stages of the selection process. When the outcome of the assessment is negative, the candidate will be informed.