UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
RECRUITMENT ROLE PROFILE FORM
Job Title:
Research Associate/Fellow in Community Energy Management Systems
School/Department:
Faculty of Engineering – Division of Electrical and Optical Systems
Salary:
£25,513 - £37,394 per annum, depending on skills and experience,
(minimum £28,695 with relevant PhD). Salary progression beyond this scale
is subject to performance
Job Family and Level:
Research and Teaching Level 4CTG/4
Contract Status:
This post is available immediately and will be offered on a fixed-term contract
for a period of 12 months.
Hours of Work:
Full-time (36.25 hours per week)
Location:
Faculty of Engineering, Unbiversity Park Campus
Reporting to:
Prof Mark Sumner
The Purpose of the New Role:
The successful candidates will work with industrial partners to develop and validate equipment for
monitoring and controlling electrical energy consumption within several residential dwellings with the aim
of benefitting the community energy costs. The researcher will specifically create a modelling platform to
evaluate the effectiveness of the control algorithms and will then develop a real time emulation of the
community using resources based in the FlexElec laboratory to ensure the externally developed equipment
works safely and correctly.
Candidates must have (or be about to obtain) a PhD, or equivalent in a relevant area, together with the
relevant research skills, knowledge and published papers on electrical energy management, Demand Side
Management, Load Shifting and interfacing battery energy storage to the grid. The project involves strong
academic and industrial collaboration.
Main Responsibilities
1.
2.
2.
3.
4.
5.
a) To identify and develop models for commonly used electrical equipment within
domestic dwellings, to create electrical consumption models for small
communities.
b) To interface the control actions of the monitoring system to the residential
consumption models to assess the controller performance through simulation.
c) To port the electrical consumption models to a real time control platform (which
employs NI and Labview technology) and develop interfaces to real control
hardware (developed by one of the industrial partners).
d) To test and validate the operation of the control hardware (developed by an
industrial collaborator).
Production of reports, publications, presentations and travel to meetings and/or
outreach to the industry, scientific community.
Maintenance of lab equipment and training of other researchers and students in the
safe use of the equipment.
Liaison meetings with project sponsor and its subsidiaries.
Supervision of project students.
Any other duties appropriate to this post as required by their line manager.
% time
per year
70%
10%
5%
5%
5%
5%
Knowledge, Skills, Qualifications & Experience:
Essential
Qualifications/
 PhD (or about to obtain) or equivalent,
Education
with a focus on electrical energy
management, Demand Side
Management, Load Shifting or
interfacing battery energy storage to
the grid
Skills/Training
 Skills in the use of Matlab
 Skills in the use of LabView
 Skills in data manipulation and analysis
 Skills in the use of TriPhase or similar
laboratory equipment
 Strong organisational and project
management skills
 Excellent communication and
presentation skills
 Training in health and safety/risk
assessment
 Effective laboratory note taking and
logging experiments and data
 Proven ICT skills in word-processing
and presentations
Experience
 Experience of modelling electrical
energy systems
 Practical experience of working on
power electronics based electrical
energy systems
 Practical experience of working with
real-time control systems
 Practical experience of working with
real-time code development tools
 Experience of scientific report-writing
and of participation in conferences
Desirable
 Degree background in electrical
engineering for renewable energy
systems
 Skills in Java programming
 Skills in economic evaluation of
technical proposals
 Experience of liaising with external
partners
 Experience of working as part of a
team
 Maintenance of lab equipment
Decision Making
i) taken independently by the role holder;
Day-to-day project management and organisation.
Decisions regarding experimental design, undertaking experiments and analysis of results.
Safe operating practise within laboratories.
Preparing draft reports, papers and presentations.
ii) taken in collaboration with others;
Development of project plan and objectives.
Maintenance of lab equipment.
Decisions regarding the operation and management of the projects equipment.
Purchase of small consumable items for experimentation.
Manufacture of tooling and/or small components for the project.
Writing and submission of papers to academic journals/conferences, progress reports and grant
applications.
iii) referred to the appropriate line manager by the role holder.
Decisions affecting the long-term focus and direction of the research.
Overall research goals and industry involvement and participation.
Purchase of larger items of consumables/equipment and repair/service of any equipment.
Scope of the Role
The post holder will specifically create a modelling platform to evaluate the effectiveness of the control
algorithm and will then develop a real time emulation of the community using resources based in the
FlexElec laboratory to ensure the externally developed equipment works safely and correctly.
Additional Information
The Faculty of Engineering is committed to reviewing its work and practices to ensure organisational
effectiveness. Candidates should be aware that roles and responsibilities will inevitably evolve over time
and be prepared to adapt as necessary.
Applicants will be considered on an equal basis, subject to the relevant permission to work in the UK as
defined by the requirements set out by the UK Border and Immigration Agency. Please visit
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/ for more information.
Informal enquiries may be addressed to Prof Mark Sumner (email: mark.sumner@nottingham.ac.uk).
Please note that applications sent directly to this email address will not be accepted.