PhD position on the design of regulatory tools to manage grid connection queues

The rapid electrification of the energy system and the strong uptake of renewables are placing increasing pressure on electricity grids across Europe. Ensuring that grids do not become a bottleneck is essential to achieving the European Union’s climate and competitiveness goals. However, in many regions, new connection requests are “stuck” in increasingly long queues, causing significant delays for generation, storage and demand projects.

While these challenges are partly driven by physical grid constraints, they are exacerbated by current grid connection practices. In particular, the dominant “first come, first served” principle does not account for the maturity, viability, or system value of connection requests, and is increasingly questioned by policymakers and industry stakeholders. Alternative approaches are emerging, but remain fragmented, practice-driven and largely unexplored in academic literature. This PhD aims to contribute to this knowledge gap by:

1. Developing an overview of regulatory frameworks and instruments that can be applied to manage (potential) grid connection queues, taking inspiration from country use cases, academic literature and other relevant sectors.
2. Assessing the efficiency of different queue management tools in reducing connection delays while considering broader objectives such as decarbonization, fairness, and competitiveness. The most critical design choices will be evaluated using mostly quantitative methods.
3. Evaluating how a combination of queue management and congestion management tools might interact, identifying potential complementarities as well as conflicts, and translating these insights into concrete regulatory recommendations for Flanders, Belgium and Europe.

As the ideal candidate:

• You have a Master of Science degree in engineering, preferably from a reputable institute.
• You are motivated to work independently, as well as in team, on different regulatory tools to address grid connection queues, starting from the Belgian context.
• You are communicative and can express yourself fluently in English, both orally and in writing.
• You are eager to disseminate your research results through scientific publications, stakeholder interactions and conference presentations.
• You are interested in contributing to teaching activities for a limited number of hours.
• You are willing to live in Belgium. The primary workplace would be Electa in Leuven, but telework is possible.

Your background and experiences match the following expectations or allow you to achieve them quickly:

• Have a solid background in the basic features of EU electricity markets and an affinity with EU energy institutions, policy and regulation.
• Become an expert on the latest evolutions in EU energy regulation and market design.
• Gain specific expertise on grid connection processes, with a focus on distribution grids.
• Continuously align your project with the latest policy and stakeholder debates.
• Become proficient in the engineering mathematics required to execute the project, such as optimisation models and data analyses.
• Become highly skilled in the programming languages Julia, and others if needed.

For more information please contact Dr. Ellen Beckstedde, mail: ellen.beckstedde@kuleuven.be.