## (sorry - already taken) ~~rSOC in the future energy landscape~~

*Semester project, possibly followed by Master project*

*Spring 2025*

### Context

Today's energy supply still heavily relies on fossil fuels, releasing greenhouse gases and damaging ecosystems. The society is moving to  renewable alternatives like solar and wind energy, which are promising for decarbonized electricity production. Yet, they require balancing intermittency with storage technologies such Battery systems or power-to-X-to-power devices, where X represents storable molecules for power generation. In this context, reversible Solid Oxide Cells (rSOCs) have gained significant attention in the past years thanks to their high round-trip efficiency, fuel versatility and cogeneration of high quality heat. rSOC systems are very promising, but are lacking concrete applications, mainly due to their low TRL and relatively high CAPEX.

This project aims at looking at the large scale potential of this technology, using EnergyScope as the optimization framework. This powerful tool enables users to explore and model various energy transition scenarios, assess their environmental and economic impacts, and quantify the installed capacity of each technology for given constraints. Sensitivity and uncertainty analysis can easily be carried out, which is highly beneficial when looking at low TRL technologies and their impacts in the future energy landscape.

### The Tasks

The project consists of the following main steps:

- Improve the current fuel cells and electrolyzer models in AMPL-EnergyScope.
- Consider storage facilities and infrastructure, for different molecules (H2/CH4/NH3) and handle multi-period optimization.
- Improve the benchmarking approach: targeting precise KPIs, including uncertainty (technology- and/or system-related), forcing penetration.
- Quantify the impact and potential of the Solid Oxide Cells with the corresponding storage technologies and identify the main competitive technologies.

Follow-up for Master Thesis:
- Look into resilience of rSOC-integrated systems at various scales, considering grid constraints.
- Look into interaction between EnergyScope and REHO including rSOC and storage facilities.

### Skills

- Python programming
- General knowledge on energy system modelling and Optimization
- Interest in fuel cells and electrolyzers
- What else ?

- Lectures:
  - Energy Conversion and Renewable Energy
  - Applied Data Analysis (recommended)

### Practical information

> This study can consist of a 2-steps approach, starting with a semester project and following up with a Master thesis (if interest and dedication). The master project could even be performed in industry in Québec (Canada) in collaboration with [CIRAIG](ciraig.org).

The semester project will be conducted in IPESE lab in Sion (EPFL Valais) at about 1h05 from Lausanne train station. Possibility of meeting on the campus in Lausanne (mainly Mondays) once the project is up and running. 
Any transportation fees between Lausanne and Sion will be reimbursed by the lab.
English is required for the end report, but the supervision can be carried out in french, english or german.

### Supervisor
The project will be supervised by Jonas Schnidrig and Arthur Waeber. If interested, please contact us via e-mail attaching your CV and a short motivation letter.

mailto: arthur.waeber@epfl.ch; 

