PhDs and Guests

Short description of the programme:

The Energy programme is a multi-disciplinary doctoral programme aiming at solving future challenges in the energy area by means of developing new energy technologies leading to a more efficient and sustainable management of energy. It covers a broad range of energy-related topics focusing on the energy conversion process itself as well as generation, transmission, distribution and efficient use of energy are covered. Inherently it is involving various areas of both classical and new engineering sciences as well as basic research as the physical quantity “energy” and its provision and use spans broadly over almost all activities a modern society faces. Electrical, thermal, mechanical, hydraulics and control engineering sciences merge in various ratios with physics and chemistry to provide front-end knowledge enabling step by step solutions to help fulfilling the climate and emission goals set by international societies. The programme is highly experimentally oriented and offers state of the art laboratory facilities. Research cooperation with both Danish and international industries is strong as well as with world class academia. The programme has hosted + 100 PhD’s for the last years and is graduating around 30 new energy PhD’s every year.

Research areas:

The programme belongs under The Doctoral School of Engineering and Science and focuses on:

• Power Electronics (PE) and its applications with special focus on reliability in PE. Another main focus is the interaction of PE with power systems and generation and load units.
• Electrical Power Systems including production, transmission, distribution of electrical energy as well as power quality, stability, control and protection in AC and DC systems.
• High Voltage Engineering with focus on environmentally friendly overhead lines
• Smart grid and micro grid and their application to modern societies
• Energy Efficiency as a universal term spanning the above science areas
• Renewable energy generation technologies incl. wind turbines and offshore wind power plants, photovoltaic, wave energy, thermoelectric, fuel cells and biofuels.
• Reliability, diagnosis and predictive maintenance of electrical and thermal components and systems
• Energy harvesting systems such as thermo-electric generators and systems
• Automotive and industrial drives including the design of electrical motors and generators and gears in combination with their power electronics and control.
• Systems analysis, design and optimization of a wide range of energy processes, machines and systems
• Heating/cooling systems and their distribution networks (domestic heating)
• Biomass to energy systems, including biomass to liquid fuels and end use applications
• Fluid power systems and their control
• Energy storage and power management
• Analysis and optimization of thermal cycles.

The department strongly emphasises and values its international relations. Thus, the department works on a continuous basis to enhance and expand its international contacts and attract international collaboration partners. This is of upmost importance both with regards to quality in research and the educational programmes.

The department receives guests on a continuous basis. Both scientific staff and students greatly benefit from working in an international environment by the many guests as well as the knowledge these people bring to the department.