Multi-terminal HVDC Control and Operation Strategies for Offshore Wind Farms

Project Description:

This PhD scholarship is offered by the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience; a partnership between the Universities of Durham, Hull, Loughborough and Sheffield.  The successful applicant will undertake six-month of training with the rest of the CDT cohort at the University of Hull before continuing their PhD research at Loughborough University. This project is further supported by industry supervision from the National HVDC Centre.

High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) transmission provides an efficient and reliable solution for delivering offshore wind energy over long distance. Multi-terminal HVDC (MT-HVDC) technology offers key advantages over traditional point-to-point HVDC links, including lower costs, reduced socio-environmental impact, improved system security, and more efficient resource utilisation. However, current HVDC projects are usually developed as single vendor solutions, which has potential supply chain risks and limits flexibility for future expansion.  

In close collaboration with the National HVDC Centre, this project will focus on multi-vendor, transnational MT-HVDC networks for offshore wind integration. The project aim is to develop robust control and operation strategies that address the critical challenges of system interoperability and compatibility between different vendor technologies. The developed solution will be validated using advanced hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test facilities available at the National HVDC Centre, and ensuring the industrial relevance and applicability to real-world industrial systems. 

The project outcomes will support the deployment of resilient and scalable MT-HVDC technology, accelerating the integration of offshore wind energy at transnational level. By addressing vendor interoperability, this project will reduce the supply chain risks, enhance energy flexibility and security, and contribute to the net-zero transition. 

Training and development

You will benefit from a taught programme, giving you a broad understanding of the breadth and depth of current and emerging offshore wind sector needs. This begins with an intensive six-month programme at the University of Hull for the new student intake, drawing on the expertise and facilities of all four academic partners. It is supplemented by Continuing Professional Development (CPD), which is embedded throughout your 4-year research scholarship.

Depending on your background, various training is available for the candidate to complete the technical aspects of the PhD. 

The following University based courses/workshops are available: Offshore wind fundamentals, power systems, HVDC, power electronics, MATLAB simulation, control theory, stability analysis.

The following training courses are available from the National HVDC Centre: RTDS basics, real-time digital EMT simulation system setup, configuration and testing.

You will have the opportunity to take-up a one-year secondment at the National HVDC centre, and gain hands-on experience with MT HVDC real-time digital EMT simulation facilities and real-world industrial systems.

Entry requirements

If you have received a First-class Honours degree, or a 2:1 Honours degree and a Masters, or a Distinction at Masters level with any undergraduate degree (or the international equivalents) in electrical and electronic engineering, power system engineering, control engineering, or a closely related field, we would like to hear from you.   

Strong knowledge of offshore wind energy, DC and AC power system analysis, power electronics, control theory and system dynamics, practical skills in modelling and simulation and experience with real-time digital EMT simulation platform (RTDS) will be a strong advantage. 

If your first language is not English, or you require Tier 4 student visa to study, you will be required to provide evidence of your English language proficiency level that meets the requirements of the Aura CDT’s academic partners. This course requires academic IELTS 7.0 overall, with no less than 6.0 in each skill.

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Zhengyu Lin (z.lin@lboro.ac.uk) 

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

Watch our short video to hear from Aura CDT students, academics and industry partners:

Funding

The Offshore Wind CDT is funded by the EPSRC, allowing us to provide scholarships that cover fees plus a stipend set at the UKRI nationally agreed rates. These are currently £20,780 per annum at 2025/26 rates and will increase in line with the EPSRC guidelines for the subsequent years (subject to progress).

Eligibility

Research Council funding for postgraduate research has residence requirements. Our CDT scholarships are available to Home (UK) Students. To be considered a Home student, and therefore eligible for a full award, a student must have no restrictions on how long they can stay in the UK and have been ordinarily resident in the UK for at least 3 years prior to the start of the scholarship (with some further constraint regarding residence for education). For full eligibility information, please refer to the EPSRC website.

We also allocate a number of scholarships for International Students per cohort.

Guaranteed Interview Scheme

The CDT is committed to generating a diverse and inclusive training programme and is looking to attract applicants from all backgrounds. We offer a Guaranteed Interview Scheme for home fee status candidates who identify as Black or Black mixed or Asian or Asian mixed if they meet the programme entry requirements. This positive action is to support recruitment of these under-represented ethnic groups to our programme and is an opt in process.

Find out more

How to apply

Applications for this project will open in Autumn 2025 for September 2026 entry.

Interviews will be held online with an interview panel comprising of project supervisory team members from the host university where the project is based.  Where the project involves external supervisors from university partners or industry sponsors then representatives from these partners may form part of the interview panel and your supplementary application form will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section removed).

If you have any queries about this project, please contact Dr Zhengyu Lin (z.lin@lboro.ac.uk) 

You may also address queries about the CDT to auracdt@hull.ac.uk.

References & Further Reading 

EU Offshore renewable energy, Offshore renewable energy 

D. Jovcic, High Voltage Direct Current Transmission: Converters, Systems and DC Grids, Wiley, 2019, DOI:10.1002/9781119566632 

D. Chen, Towards HVDC interoperability—Vendor agnostic control architecture and quantifying domain of operating point, IET Generation, transmission & Distribution, 2025, DOI: 10.1049/gtd2.13298 

Y. Zhu, Operation optimisation of direct current microgrids toward stability and economy: a model-data co-driven framework. Commun Eng 4, 125, 2025, DOI: 10.1038/s44172-025-00466-7