Advances in Hydropower Inflow Forecasting

PhD position

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (IBM) has a vacancy for a PhD Candidate in the Norwegian Research Centre for Renewal of Hydropower Technology, RenewHydro. RenewHydro is a new research center for environmentally friendly energy that will develop hydropower to be more flexible and contribute to more sustainable renewable energy. With increased cooperation and new knowledge in technology, markets, environment and society, RenewHydro will work to reach national energy, climate and nature targets. The PhD position is a part of a project focused on adaptation and opportunities for hydropower due to changed hydrological inflow and seasonality. The hypothesis for the PhD study is that higher spatial and temporal resolution of the inflow to the watercourses can create synergies between hydropower production and environmental conditions. Based on state of the art hydrological inflow models applied in the Norwegian Hydropower Industry, the PhD will develop, test and implement new methods for higher spatial resolution of the inflow to the watercourses and investigate opportunities in combining physical meteorological/hydrological/hydraulic modelling and AI methods to improve the inflow prediction, and optimize the control of and use of water in the water courses considering both hydropower production and ecological and environmental conditions.

The PhD candidate will work together with other PhD students and researchers in RenewHydro and adapt the model to provide