Intern

Intern assignment

Describe the responsibilities and activities related to the Assignment.

If relevant, relate these activities to the requirements for completion of the Internship as set by the Institute of Education.

Include details of department where the Internship will be carried out.

MSc internship, based at Energy Transition Campus Amsterdam (ETCA)

Goals and objectives

Project title - Techno economic optimisation of small scale modular energy supply chains.

Traditional molecular energy supply chains benefit strongly from economies of scale, due to the fact that feedstock to these supply chains is available in a very dense form.

For renewable energy supply chains this is usually not the case. e.g. any process based on sunlight on earth needs to deal with the fact that the maximum energy influx is at best 1000 watts per m3.

In addition, energy supply can be highly variable and will be absent for large portions of time.

This poses challenges for continuous large-scale operation.

Several studies and startups are now developing concepts for modular systems that will allow autonomous operation at small (modular) scale.

The objective of the study is to further deepen our understanding of these modular systems, and based on techno economic considerations develop perspectives on cost forward trajectories for products produced via these systems.

Work will include an economic comparison of small scale supply chains to large scale systems, evaluation of different production pathways and subsystems, evaluation technology development upsides (what would need to be true for this to make it work).