PhD scholarships for RLI researchers

December 8^th 2016 – The two RLI researchers Alexander Wanitschke and Paul Bertheau have won scholarships for their PhD projects and have been accepted into the PhD program of Reiner Lemoine-Foundation. The foundation, that established RLI in 2010, is funding a number of junior researchers who work in renewable energies and transformation of energy systems every year. Paul and Alexander, who have so far been working for different research projects on the RLI research fields Mobility with Renewable Energy and Off-Grid Systems, now have the opportunity to pursue their own research projects.

Alexander’s thesis goes by the working title “Multi-objective optimization and robustness analysis for improved decision-making in the transformation of mobility and energy systems”. The main idea is the Transport Transition, meaning the renunciation of combustion engines and the use of alternative, emission-free engines. Alexander will analyze which technological, economic, and ecological barriers need to be overcome and which paths could lead to a sustainable mobility mix.

Titled “Transformation processes for realizing sustainable energy supply on the Philippines – an interdisciplinary analysis of success factors“, Paul’s thesis examines renewable energy on the Philippines, where we have the interesting situation that remote, small islands can hardly be connected to the electricity grid, while having the best conditions for solar and wind power. Still, investments often fail, due to the complexity of the task. Paul will develop an interdisciplinary approach to solving this problem.

The PhD scholarships start as of January 1st 2017, and will be granted for three years. Paul and Alexander will stay at RLI as affiliated researchers during this period.