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Internship: Water-Energy Analysis for the Electricity System

The candidate will support a variety of tasks related to renewable energy market and policy analyses in NREL's Strategic Energy Analysis Center. The successful candidate will have strong research and writing skills as well as experience compiling and manipulating large data sets for analysis. 
The intern will work with a Postdoctoral Researcher and other research staff on electricity system modeling in order to explore the water-energy nexus. The core of the interns work will be in programming in one or more of the following platforms to support the data management, quality control, post-processing, and analysis of electricity system models:

  • PLEXOS
  • R
  • Python
  • Linux 
  • Some programming knowledge is necessary but some on-the-job learning is also expected.
Possible key projects include:

  • Support analysis work examining the impacts of drought and heat waves on the electricity system.
  • Support analysis of the impacts of changes in water availability on the hydro, coal, and natural gas power plants in the electricity system in the US. Analyze the impact of these changes on renewable generators as well as the role that renewable energy penetration level plays in the system’s operation under water constrained scenarios.
  • Support modeling efforts to analyze the effect of changing temperature on electricity demand.
  • Post process large electricity grid simulations. This includes setting up good quality control procedures and high impact visualizations of the results for publication

Qualifications:
  • Must be enrolled in a degree earning program, be graduating this May or have graduated in the past several months

Preferred background:
  • Must be working towards, or have attained a MS/PhD in Computer Engineering, Environmental Studies, Economics/Environmental Economics, Law/Policy, or similar degree program
  • Background using PLEXOS software, R, Python and/or exposure to Linux based systems a plus