PhD Fellowship (Boursier de Doctorat in French) (f/m/x) in AI-Driven Optimisation for Energy Communities

Doctorat / PhD Profil chercheur : First Stage Researcher (R1) Type de contrat : Temporary Date limite de candidature : 30 Nov 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Brussels) Date de début : 1 Jan 2027 Programme UE : Horizon Europe Référence : HORIZON-CL5-2026-03-D3-22 Département : Electrical Power Engineering Unit (Service de Génie Electrique), Power Systems and Markets Research Group Domaine : Engineering

Three-year PhD fellowship ( Horizon CL5-2026-03-D3-22 , Type of Action: HORIZON-IA) The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Mons (UMONS), Belgium, invites applications for a three-year PhD fellowship within the Horizon Europe project AISCEND (AI-driven, socially embedded forecasting and energy sharing for community-centered grids). The research will focus on combining mathematical optimisation and artificial intelligence to improve energy sharing and flexibility management in energy communities. You will develop day-ahead scheduling methods integrating renewable generation, flexible demand, storage and electricity-grid constraints. The work will explore decision-focused learning and machine-learning-assisted optimisation to improve decision quality and computational efficiency. You will also investigate reinforcement learning to adapt energy-management decisions to forecast errors and changing operating conditions. In collaboration with European partners, you will contribute to integrating these methods into an agentic AI platform for coordinated energy management. The developed approaches will be tested and validated in the Belgian living lab, involving energy communities supported by IDETA, in collaboration with distribution system operator ORES. Particular attention will be paid to collective self-consumption, user comfort, voluntary participation and human-in-the-loop decision-making. Applicants should hold a Master’s degree in electrical engineering, energy engineering, computer science engineering or a related engineering field, with strong programming and quantitative skills. An interest in electric power systems, optimization, machine learning and energy economics, together with good communication skills in English, is essential.

Three-year PhD fellowship ( Horizon CL5-2026-03-D3-22 , Type of Action: HORIZON-IA)

The Faculty of Engineering of the University of Mons (UMONS), Belgium, invites applications for a three-year PhD fellowship within the Horizon Europe project AISCEND (AI-driven, socially embedded forecasting and energy sharing for community-centered grids).

The research will focus on combining mathematical optimisation and artificial intelligence to improve energy sharing and flexibility management in energy communities.

You will develop day-ahead scheduling methods integrating renewable generation, flexible demand, storage and electricity-grid constraints. The work will explore decision-focused learning and machine-learning-assisted optimisation to improve decision quality and computational efficiency.

You will also investigate…