PhD positions (2): Cyber resilience of interconnected power grids (# of pos: 2)

The eFORT project, funded under Horizon Europe, is recruiting talented, enthusiastic, and ambitious candidates to perform excellent research and achieve breakthroughs in the field of power system resilience and cyber security. The main objective of eFORT is to make interconnected power grids more resilient and reliable to failures, cyber attacks, physical disturbances, and data privacy issues. To this end, a set of technological innovations will be developed for the detection, prevention and mitigation of risks and vulnerabilities with positive impacts on power system operation and stability. The eFORT solutions will be demonstrated at TSO, DSO, digital substation, and microgrid levels in 4 real demonstration environments.

Within the eFORT project, Delft University of Technology is hiring two doctoral candidates on the subjects: (1) “Self-healing power grid capabilities to defend against cascading effects" and (2) "Decision support for Operational Technology (OT) and power system restoration."

Description PhD position (1):

You will conduct research on power system stability and develop self-healing capabilities for interconnected power grids to stop the propagation of cascading effects and prevent a blackout. First, a computational method will be developed, which uses a digital twin of the power grid to assess in real-time the impact of cyber attacks on power system operation, estimate stability margins, analyse how they can initiate cascading failures that may lead to a blackout, and quantify grid resilience. Then, you will develop an Intelligent Platform to enable the self-healing grid capabilities and stop propagation of cascading outages. This will be achieved by a novel system for coordinated, self-healing emergency controls using wide area monitoring, protection and control (WAMPAC) and microgrids.

Description PhD position (2):

You will conduct research to develop a decision support methodology for cyber-power system restoration from a blackout caused by cyber attacks considering both OT and physical grid infrastructures. A digital twin will be used to help system operators evaluate in real-time the feasibility of restorative actions based on the cyber-physical system condition. At cyber layer, the decision support methodology will use computational intelligence to assess the OT damages and generate courses of action for an efficient OT system restoration. At physical layer, it will support the operator decision making for restoration of interconnected power grids using black-start resources and tie lines.

Our large RTDS infrastructure, coupled with Control Room of the Future (CRoF), will be used by both PhDs to conduct research and demonstration of prototype solutions.

We offer four-year PhD appointments, with an anticipated start date in October / November 2022. You will be a member of the section Intelligent Electrical Power Grids that is part of the Electrical Sustainable Energy (ESE) Department within the Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics, and Computer Science. This project offers excellent opportunities to work in a dynamic team consisting of experts from academia, utilities, and vendors.