Industrial PhD position in Energy, Mechanical Engineering, and Electronics

Title: Design of Solar Central for concentrating solar thermal collectors
About the University
The University of Gävle's vision is to be the first choice for everyone who wants to make a difference. We offer around 60 educational programs and 300 independent courses in the humanities, healthcare and medicine, social and natural sciences and technology. The University of Gävle is one of Sweden's most popular universities based on search pressure. We have 16,000 students, 750 employees and a unified campus in beautiful surroundings.
The university focuses on four strategic research areas: sustainable urban development, health promotion work, innovative learning and intelligent industry.
www.hig.se
Presentation about the industrial companies
Absolicon Solar Collector AB was established in 2005 as a research and development company in solar energy. Today, Absolicon is a business company with almost 20 years of operational experience from over 6000 sqm installed area in 20 installations worldwide. Absolicon has a unique technology, based on 20 years of research, for extracting energy in different forms using concentrated solar collectors, or solar concentrators. The concentrators help reduce the production costs, while simultaneously providing a high degree of energy efficiency in the form of thermal energy, solar electricity, solar cooling, solar heat and solar steam. Absolicon’s flagship product (the T160) is applicable for the industrial sector, solar cooling and district heating. Absolicon’s T160 technology is certified with Solar Keymark and Absolicon has been awarded the Solar Impulse label twice. The company combines state-of-the-art solar research with sale of solar collector fields and solar collector production lines.
www.absolicon.com
MG Sustainable Engineering AB’s vision is to enable the Clean Energy Transition, by offering state of the art innovation concepts, project coordination, and uniting actors of the solar energy sector. MG Sustainable has been developing innovative energy solutions in Photovoltaic-Thermal (PVT), Concentrator Photovoltaic (CPV), and Concentrated Photovoltaic Thermal (CPVT) solar collector research. We have extensive experience in project management at local, national and European levels. MG Sustainable is also engaged in bringing energy-efficient and non-polluting solutions for developing countries. The team participated in projects developed in several European countries as well as in Mozambique, South Africa, Chile and India.
www.mgsust.com
About the Job
The student will be incorporated into the RESILIENT Energy School PhD school, which is a 125 MSEK project funded by Energymindigheten. 5 Universities and 30 companies take part in the project.
Both water and food supply, transport, health and medical care as well as communication and industry are dependent on energy. Without energy, no infrastructures or sectors can operate. Therefore, the energy sector is today's most critical infrastructure. A breakdown in parts of the energy sector leads to a negative impact on other infrastructure systems - and can lead to disaster situations. The transition to a more electrified, decentralized and digitized energy system with a high proportion of renewable energy brings many challenges but also opportunities.
This PhD project will perform an in depth evaluation of the role and possibilities of solar thermal energy solutions in a resilient energy system, with a focus on system design and standardization as well as heat purchasing agreement models for industrial processes. This thesis will focus heavily on the Absolicon solar collector and its system.
The overall research objective will be to design and develop solar centrals for the effective integration of solar thermal plants into different end-user industrial applications. The general objectives of the project are:
(1) to ease the solar central developing process by assessing the standardization and modularization of the subsystems that conform to it as well as optimizing the engineering procedures required for its design;
(2) Significantly reduce the time and engineering resources required to design, build, install, and commission the solar central.
We offer academics with Master of Science degrees in Engineering world-class research opportunities and employment while working towards a licentiate or doctoral thesis.
The PhD student will be employed by the University of Gävle and working at Absolicon Solar Collector (50%) and MG Sustainable Engineering (50%), Sweden.
The doctoral position assignment include:
- Scientific Publications
- Complete courses corresponding to at least 60 credits
- Teaching and/or implementation of administrative work
- Regularly participate in academy activities such as seminars and meetings
Qualifications
To apply, the applicant should have a Master of Engineering degree (or equivalent) in sustainable energy engineering, industrial management, innovation management, mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or in a related technical science or engineering subject. We welcome applicants that are currently completing their master thesis project.
We look for candidates that are self-motivated, organized, engaged, and can communicate in a pedagogic way to expert and non-expert audiences. You exhibit strong analytical skills, are well-organized, and able to autonomously plan and execute tasks. You are fluent in English both in writing and in speech.
Other information
The employment is full-time for 2 years and 3 months (Licenciate) and can be extended to 4 years depending on performance. The workplace is Uppsala, Gävle and Härnösand, Sweden. The PhD student will spend 50% of his/her time at Absolicon in Härnösand and 50% at MG Sustainable in Uppsala. An employed doctoral student can, to a limited extent (maximum 20%), perform certain tasks within e.g. education and administration.
Diversity and gender equality will be fostered as part of our vision of an inclusive culture.
The application must contain a CV, personal letter and any other documents that you wish to refer to. Emails subjects must be marked RESILIENT Application + your name.