PhD scholarship on HVDC Cable Analytics: Using monitored data from contingency analysis to determine cable and accessory lifetime

The position is part of the ADOreD (Accelerating the Deployment of Offshore wind using Dc technology) project. ADOreD is one of the largest industrial doctoral networks contributing to the decarbonization of electric power system via developing the most appropriate models and methods for a coordinated approach to offshore renewable connections. Six academic and 12 industrial beneficiaries will recruit and train 19 doctoral candidates performing research on topics spanning offshore wind, HVDC technology and grids and interactions between AC and DC systems. ADOReD is funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe research & innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101073554. 

In accordance with MSCA Doctoral Networks, candidates must comply with mobility rule: you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Belgium for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before your recruitment date. This may require that the candidate will have to move to another country during that period. 

Underground cables are expected to form the bulk part of the transmission lines in a future (largely offshore) HVDC grid. Large-scale HVDC grids are becoming a possibility given that rated cable voltages, and hence, transmission capabilities, have gone up dramatically in the past decades, thanks to better dielectrics and cable designs. With those developments an increased focus is put on new system performance requirements towards cables and resulting potential impact on long term operability.  Typical questions are related e.g. to how voltage stresses due to contingencies within the HVDC grid look like and how they may affect cable performance.  Another example is the possible interactions between HVDC grid protection and occurrence of voltage stresses, which are at present not fully characterized. The objective of this PhD is on the one hand to identify the voltage waveforms that may be applied to a HVDC cable in a HVDC grid situation and on the other hand to relate these voltage waveforms to the cable performance respectively cable degradation mechanisms. A second part of the PhD should deal with observation and measurement of new imposed requirements, respectively their potential impact onto the cable system, and exploit these findings for providing potential monitoring actions.