UQ School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering PhD international awards

The Department of Innovation and Tourism Industry Development of the state Government of Queensland has recently funded a Project ‘Enabling the Power Systems of the Future’ at the University of Queensland. This project will develop a new power system simulation/analysis platform to investigate the security of Queensland’s power system and support the transition to integrate new energy platforms and achieve 50% renewable by 2030. This project will deliver an EMT platform incorporating new algorithms and state-of-the-art models for new interconnected technologies and other energy platforms. The analytics developed in this project will be useful to accurately assess security risks and optimise the design of new energy platforms, such as renewable generators, battery storage, synchronous condensers, VSC based HVDC interconnectors and new technology based pumped storage.

Globally there is an urgent need for a step change in the platform for monitoring and controlling electricity distribution networks to ensure safety, reliability, and support customer participation, via home energy management (HEM) platforms, in electricity supply and usage, including through distributed technologies such as household photovoltaics (PV), battery storage, smart appliances and electric-vehicle (EV) chargers. This project also develops and trials a scalable estimation and control platform to enable intensive, wide-scale integration of HEM platforms and associated distributed technologies across Medium Voltage (MV) and Low Voltage (LV) networks. This part of the project collaborates closely with an SME GridQube.

A working knowledge of power systems PSCAD modeling, python programming skill OR distribution network modeling, optimization and control systems tools would be of benefit to someone working on this project.

You must meet the entry requirements for a higher degree by research.

$28,597 per annum (2021 rate), indexed annually