PhD scholarship in “Coupling of meso- and micro-scale simulation frameworks for 
renewable energy applications” (expression of interest) – 4 years

Performance and operation of renewable energies are conditional to the actual 
weather conditions, both for energy generation (e.g. wind turbines) or for 
extreme load prevention (e.g. solar farms). Traditional approaches of microscale 
modelling allow to capture the interaction between these assets with idealised 
environmental conditions, i.e. specific wind speed or thermal stratification, 
whilst the atmospheric state is constantly changing. This PhD studentship builds 
on the current experience of the host team on mesoscale modelling with WRF and 
microscale modelling with DOFAS to build a first-of-its-kind mesoscale-driven 
large-eddy simulation framework. Testcases will concern environmental flows both 
onshore (solar photovoltaic farms) and offshore (wind farms). The PhD student 
will engage with world-leading companies in these renewable energy fields to 
contribute to progressing state-of-the-art modelling with real impact into the 
sector. A research stay at the University of Manchester during the PhD will be 
enabled to support ongoing collaborations.

Eligibility:

Candidates must have a 1st or high 2i in a degree, ideally at Masters level, in 
an Engineering subject, Physics, Mathematics, or Atmospheric Sciences. Knowledge 
in fluid mechanics, numerical methods and computational modelling is necessary. 
The student is expected to have prior experience writing codes on Fortran or 
C/C++, and experience on Linux systems. The ideal candidate is expected to have 
a strong interest in renewable energy, be enthusiastic about physics-based 
computational modelling, be able to have a proactive attitude towards problem 
solving independently, and ability to work in multidisciplinary teams.


Funding and host institution:

This is a fully-funded scholarship open to Spanish and overseas students to be 
hosted at CESGA (Galicia Supercomputing Centre) in Santiago de Compostela 
(Spain). During this four-year position, the candidate’s salary will increase 
yearly: year 1 is 21,614€, year 2 is 24,856€, and years 3 and 4 is 26,600€.

CESGA has signed agreements with the Universities of Santiago, Vigo and A Coruña 
that enables the supervision of PhD students by academics at CESGA alone or 
jointly with colleagues at the mentioned universities. CESGA provides a series 
of unique training activities for the future PhD students and post-doctoral 
researchers, which can be combined with development courses provided at the 
associated universities. There is a comprehensive list of available training 
courses align with current European projects such as FF4EUROHPC or EuroCC, 
including: introduction to high-performance computing, introduction to message 
passing interface (MPI), workshop to use Finisterrae III and IV clusters, 
Performance Analysis and Tools, introduction to OpenACC, Crash course on 
heterogeneous systems, heterogeneous programming on GPU with MPI, Introduction 
to CUDA, research data management for Beginners, etc.

How to apply:

This is an expression of interest from potential candidates who align with the 
scope of the scholarship. Interested candidates should send the following 
documents to the PI, Dr Pablo Ouro (pablo.ouro@cesga.es):

· Final Transcript and certificates of all awarded university level 
qualifications.

· Interim Transcript of any university level qualifications in progress.

· CV.

· Supporting statement: A one or two page statement outlining your motivation to 
pursue postgraduate research and why you want to undertake postgraduate research 
at CESGA, any relevant research or work experience, the key findings of your 
previous research experience, and techniques and skills you’ve developed.

· Contact details for two referees (please make sure that the contact email you 
provide is an official university/work email address as we may need to verify 
the reference)

Candidates will be shortlisted for interviews to be held in mid-July. She/he is 
meant to start between 1st September 2025 and 30th October 2025.