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Master thesis: Innovation policies and technological change: The case of battery storage in the energy and mobility sectors
Research field and tasks
In the Paris agreement, almost 200 countries committed to drastically reduce their CO2 emissions. In order to achieve this goal, both the energy and mobility sector, which together account for almost half of these emissions, need to transform towards low-carbon technologies.
For the energy sector this means ever-increasing solar PV and wind power capacities, and therefore an increasing share of intermittent power. Correspondingly, balancing electricity supply and demand is considered a key challenge in this transition.
For the mobility sector, we currently see almost all major automakers shifting their portfolios towards electrified vehicles and announcing massive investments in production capacities. E.g., Volkswagen plans additional investments in this area of EUR 20bn until 2030.
In both these sectors, policy makers and practitioners consider battery storage as a key component of future systems – especially given the rapid decline of battery system costs during recent years.
As part of our research agenda on battery storage policies, EPG is looking for a student that likes to conduct her/his Master’s thesis on this topic – specifically analyzing the linkages between battery storage policies and manufacturing investment in different countries. The student’s tasks may comprise, amongst others:
• Further developing existing databases on battery storage manufacturing plants and on battery storage policies for selected countries (e.g., EU, China, USA, Korea)
• Conducting quantitative and qualitative analyses to study the interdependency of policies and manufacturing investments
• Discussing the results and deriving policy implications
Requirements
We are looking for an excellent student with strong English skills, who is self-dependent, ambitious, has a highly structured and goal-oriented way of working and the ability to work in a team. A good understanding of battery storage technologies and/or policy analysis/ assessment is a plus.
We are open in terms of disciplinary background (e.g., engineering, political science, business, and economics) and will tailor the thesis topic accordingly. Applications from non-ETH students are also welcome.
Conditions
The student will work in close collaboration with EPG team members and Prof. Tobias Schmidt. She/he will have the opportunity to become an integral part of the EPG research team.
The duration of the thesis is 6 months – starting date is flexible.
Your application
Your application documents should include a short letter of motivation (one page), your CV, and transcript of records (with grades). Please send your complete documents via email to:
Martin Beuse (martin.beuse@gess.ethz.ch)
At www.epg.ethz.ch you can find more information about the group.