Project Description

PhD Subject: Electrical Engineering

The Challenge:

The power grid is undergoing a fundamental transformation, driven by increased digitalization, deregulation, and extensive expansion of renewable energy resources and flexible assets.

Local energy communities and peer-to-peer trading platforms have the potential to leverage this transformation to unlock economic and societal value by enabling direct energy sharing among prosumers, thereby increasing flexibility, autonomy, and fairness in energy access.

However, realizing these markets at scale in real power grids is hindered by significant challenges: the computational complexity of operating large-scale decentralized markets, the uncertainty associated with renewable production, and the need to ensure that decentralized market outcomes remain operationally feasible, system-wide efficient, and fair for heterogeneous participants. Addressing these challenges requires new mathematical models and algorithms that combine optimization, game theory, and control with data-driven learning methods.

Your Role:

The Department of Control Engineering is seeking an exceptional PhD candidate to conduct research at the intersection of optimization, learning, and game theory, aiming to develop the foundation for the next generation of autonomous and decentralized energy markets. The project encompasses both fundamental and computational challenges and involves the development of stochastic models for decentralized energy markets, decentralized and learning-enhanced market clearing algorithms, and fair-by-design pricing strategies.

The research will address one or more of the following areas:

• Stochastic and data-driven modeling of peer-to-peer energy trading
• Learning-to-Optimize (L2O) for large-scale multi-agent systems
• Bilevel games and mechanism design methods for fair pricing
• Design and analysis of decentralized energy markets

The PhD candidate will join the research group of Assistant Professor Giuseppe Belgiooso.

Supervision:

Assistant Professor Giuseppe Belgioioso and Professor Henrik Sandberg are proposed to supervise the PhD candidate. Decisions will be made upon admission.

Eligibility for Admission

To be admitted to doctoral education (Chapter 7, Section 39 of the Higher Education Ordinance), the applicant must have basic eligibility:

• completed a degree at the advanced level, or
• completed course requirements of at least 240 higher education credits, of which at least 60 higher education credits at the advanced level, or
• acquired equivalent knowledge in some other way, within or outside the country.

In addition to the above, there is also a mandatory requirement for English corresponding to English B/6.

Selection

To succeed in your doctoral studies at KTH, you need to be goal-oriented and persistent in your work. In the selection of applicants, the ability to:

• independently drive your work forward,
• collaborate with others,
• maintain a professional approach, and
• analyze and work with complex issues.

Selected candidates must be able to provide contact details for at least one academic or professional reference. The candidate must demonstrate a high motivation for doctoral studies.

After the eligibility requirements, great importance will be placed on personal qualities.

Target Degree:

Doctoral Degree

Information on Admission and Employment

Only those who have been admitted to doctoral education may be employed as PhD candidates. The total employment period may not exceed what corresponds to full-time doctoral education for four years. A employed PhD candidate may, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within e.g. education and administration. A new employment as a PhD candidate applies for a maximum of one year, and the employment may then be renewed for a maximum of two years at a time. For studies that will conclude with a licentiate degree, the total employment period may not exceed what corresponds to full-time doctoral education for two years.

As a PhD candidate, you will benefit from KTH's employment benefits and receive a monthly salary according to KTH's agreement for doctoral salaries. Read more about Doctoral Studies at KTH | KTH | Sweden.

Union Representatives

Contact details for union representatives.

The PhD Section (Student Union of the Royal Institute of Technology)

Contact details for the PhD section.

Application

You apply via KTH's recruitment system. As an applicant, you are primarily responsible for ensuring that your application is complete when submitted.

The application must be received by KTH no later than the last application day at midnight, CET/CEST (Central European Time/Central European Summer Time).

The application must include the following content:

• Copies of diplomas and transcripts from previous university studies and certificates of fulfilled language requirements (see above). Translations into English or Swedish if the original documents are not issued in one of these languages. Copies of originals must be certified.
• CV including relevant work experience and knowledge, any publications, and names of at least one professional reference.
• Cover letter with a brief description of why you want to pursue doctoral studies, what your academic interests are, and how they relate to your previous studies and future goals. (Max 1 page long).

Other

For information on the processing of personal data in connection with recruitment.

It may occur that a position at KTH is classified in a security class. If this is the case for this position, a security review of the applicant will be conducted in accordance with the Security Protection Act (2018:585) after consent. In these cases, a prerequisite for employment is that the applicant is approved after the security review.

We kindly ask for no direct contact with staffing and recruitment companies or sellers of job advertisements.

Become a part of KTH

KTH shapes the future through education, research, and innovation. As a leading international technical university, we play an active role in driving and participating in the transition to a sustainable society. Here, you are offered the opportunity to grow and develop in a creative and dynamic workplace with good working conditions and benefits. Equality, diversity, and equal opportunities are a quality issue and an obvious part of KTH's values as a university and public authority.

Read more here (https://www.kth.se/om/jobba-pa-kth)