PhD Candidate in Electricity Market Coupling and Market Design Transformation

About this job

Do you have a background in electrical power engineering, operations research, or a related field, and are you interested in energy systems and markets? As a PhD candidate with us, you will work to achieve your doctorate, and at the same time gain valuable experience that qualifies you for a further career in higher education and research, both in and outside academia. The Department of Electric Energy (IEL) at NTNU is seeking a highly motivated candidate for a full-time (100%) PhD position for 3 years as part of the NTNU Energy initiative on Resilient and Integrated Energy Systems. You will join the Electricity Markets and Energy System Planning (EMESP) research group at IEL, where we foster an open, inclusive, and collaborative working environment. Our work environment is defined by its friendly and supportive atmosphere, with regular gatherings such as shared lunches, and “Friday coffee” sessions to end the week. These informal events offer opportunities to share ideas, celebrate milestones, and build relationships. PhD candidates also organize social activities open to everyone interested, fostering a welcoming and inclusive community. Your immediate Line Manager will be the Head of Department. About the project Electricity markets are undergoing a fundamental transformation driven by large-scale renewable integration, stronger interconnections, electrification of demand, hydropower flexibility, storage, and increasing balancing needs. These developments strengthen the interaction between market design and physical power-system operation. In Europe and the Nordic region, the transition from traditional capacity-allocation methods towards flow-based market coupling creates new opportunities, but also new challenges related to price formation, congestion management, transparency, welfare distribution, and operational feasibility. The objective of this PhD project is to develop new knowledge, models, and analytical insights into how future electricity market designs can support the efficient and secure operation of low-carbon power systems. The project will focus on market coupling, optimal pricing in market clearing, flow-based capacity allocation, interconnectors modelling, and market-design transformation in Nordic and European electricity markets. The PhD candidate will develop and apply optimization-based market models to analyze how different market-clearing and capacity-allocation methods affect zonal prices, cross-border exchange, congestion rents, welfare distribution, non-fossil flexibility, and system operation. Particular attention will be given to the interpretation of market prices through marginal values, shadow prices, congestion components, scarcity signals, and the relationship between market outcomes and physical network constraints. Regulatory aspects also need to be included through market surveillance and power producer components must embrace the feedback of production aspects. In flow-based market coupling, market outcomes depend strongly on modelling choices related to the representation of the transmission grid, available cross-zonal capacity, operational security constraints, remedial actions, internal grid constraints, and interconnectors. The project may investigate how such assumptions affect the feasible trading domain, price formation, transparency, congestion management, welfare distribution, and the extent to which zonal prices reflect the marginal value of energy and scarce transmission capacity in the context of electricity market design. Methodologically, the project is expected to combine electricity market modelling, social welfare optimization, and scenario-based studies. The work may address key research-frontier questions in flow-based market coupling and related market-design arrangements, including how different capacity-allocation methods and network representations influence the consistency between market outcomes and physical power-system constraints. The PhD candidate will be hosted by the Electricity Markets and Energy Systems Planning (EMESP) group in the Department of Electric Energy at NTNU. The main supervisor will be Professor Hossein Farahmand, with co-supervision from relevant experts in electricity markets, power-system operation, optimization, and market design, depending on the final methodological focus of the PhD project. Duties of the position Carry out research of high quality within the framework described above Participate in the

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