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 are open until 5 January 2026.

Please note, you may only apply for ONE project offered through the EPSRC CDT in Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience.

Please ensure that you familiarise yourself with the Aura CDT website before you apply to give you a good understanding of what a CDT is, our CDT’s research focus and the training and continuing professional development programme that runs alongside the CDT. The Frequently asked questions page and Candidate resources page are essential reading prior to applying.

Applications are made via the Loughborough University admissions system. If you have not applied to Loughborough University before, you will need to set up an account to enable you to track the progress of your application and upload supporting documents.

As part of the recruitment process, we ask that you submit a short film of you delivering a presentation, of up to 5 minutes in length, on “How do your experiences and qualities provide a background to contribute to research and innovation for the project you have applied for”.

You will be assessed on the content of your presentation, not your film editing skills, but please be mindful of filming in an appropriate, quiet location. Please film the presentation in whatever way you feel most comfortable with. For example, it could be a slide presentation with voice over, or you may wish to present simply talking to the camera.  Please use the tools and technology that are accessible to you and that you feel comfortable with e.g. your mobile phone, or the built-in ‘Record Slide Show’ on Keynote (macOS, iOS, iPadOS) or Powerpoint etc.

We also ask that you complete a Supplementary Application Form. This includes space for you to provide a link where the shortlisting panel may view your film.

Follow this link to apply for CDT projects at Loughborough University: https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/apply/research-applications/

Under programme name, select ‘Mechanical and Manufacturing Offshore Wind Energy Sustainability and Resilience’. Both Full-time and Part-time modes of study are available (part-time study is only available to Home students due to visa restrictions). Please quote the advertised reference number in your application: this is Aura26-ZL for “Multi-terminal HVDC Control and Operation Strategies for Offshore Wind Farms”.

With your application, you need to upload copies of the following supporting evidence:

• Complete transcripts (and final degree certificate(s) where possible). If your qualification documents are not in English, you will need to supply copies of your original language documents as well as their official translation into English.
• Your Curriculum Vitae (CV).
• A completed Supplementary Application Form (upload as part of your supporting evidence documentation).

Uploading the form 

When you have completed the form, please save it as a pdf format and labelled as follows:

Last name_first name PhD application form

Upload the form as part of your application documents through the Loughborough University student application portal upload as part of your supporting evidence documentation. Please do not send your form directly to the Offshore Wind CDT.

Interviews

First-round interviews will be held online during early to mid-February 2026. The interview panel will comprise the project supervisory team members from the host university where the project is based, plus a representative of the CDT.  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 application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section of the supplementary application form removed).

If you are successful, you will progress to a second interview towards the end of February 2026. This will be with key academics from the CDT from across our four partner institutions (Durham University, University of Hull, Loughborough University, University of Sheffield) and your application documents will be shared with them (with the guaranteed interview scheme section removed from the supplementary application form).

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