Doctoral Candidate KUL (4)

Highlights description

My name is Emmanuel Sule, and I am from Jattu Uzairue in Nigeria. I am an Erasumus Mundus 2022 master scholarship awardee. I am passionate about renewable energy and power electronics, with a strong interest in developing innovative solutions for sustainable power systems. Outside of academics and research, I enjoy going to the gym, hiking, and travelling to immerse myself in different cultures.

Degrees

M. Sc. in Electrical Engineering, 2024, HTW Berlin, Germany

M. Sc. in Energy Engineering, 2023, UPC Barcelona, Spain.

M. Sc. in Automatic, Robotics, 2023, ECN Nantes, France.

Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree in dynamics of Renewable based Power Systems (DREAM)

Bachelor of Engineering in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, 2019, Federal University of Technology Akure, Nigeria.

Work experience and Internships

Master Thesis internship at Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy Systems (IWES), Hamburg Germany, 6 months, 2024.

Topic of Doctoral Thesis

Interactions and co-design between control and protection in future multivendor HVDC grids

Research objectives:

Future large scale HVDC networks (or ‘HVDC grids’) should be multivendor such that asset owners have free choice over the vendor of each piece of equipment connected to the HVDC grid, and Europe remains an open market without an unacceptable continent-wide vendor lock in. Existing systems have been developed by one system integrator, but to achieve a fully multivendor HVDC grid, several key challenges relating to control and protection need to be addressed.

Converter control and system protection have traditionally been designed largely independently, however, for HVDC grids the DC protection can have a significant impact on the converter control, and in future mul- tivendor systems a change in DC protection (e.g. by one party) could inadvertently impact the performance of converter controls (e.g. owned by another party). It is therefore crucial to fully understand the possible interactions between control and grid protection.

Depending on the HVDC protection configuration there are expected to be benefits to control signals being communicated between the converter control and the grid protection. These interfaces and the possible functional splitting in the control and protection systems will be examined. Insights will be gained into the complex requirements for interoperability of multivendor control and protection systems, and provide steps towards future IP sensitive solutions for future large scale HVDC networks.

The overall objective is to identify opportunities for co-design and interdependence between converter (con- trol) and (grid) protection systems, including regarding both design and control interaction / performance aspects.

Secondment:

Academic: KIT, Prof. Thomas Leibfried, 3-6 months, purpose: enhance control aspects in co-design method.

Industrial: ELIA, Dr. Adedotun Agbemuko, 3-6 months, purpose: refine co-design between control and pro- tection and increase relevance to future industrial HVDC systems. 

Motivation to work in Inter-oPEn

I’m excited to join Inter-oPEn because it seeks to tackle one of the most critical challenges in today’s energy landscape: making power systems interoperable. My background in renewable energy and power electronics has shown me how important openness is—it drives innovation, makes systems more reliable, and keeps costs down, all while enabling different technologies to work together seamlessly. This aligns perfectly with my goal to help create sustainable and practical solutions for modern energy systems.

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