Day Ahead Analyst

Requisition ID # 163104 

Job Category: Energy Services / Trading 

Job Level: Individual Contributor

Business Unit: Engineering, Planning & Strategy

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland

Department Overview

The Day Ahead Operations group is part of the Short-Term Electric Supply department within Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s (PG&E) Energy Policy and Procurement organization. Key activities include procuring and scheduling electricity to meet PG&E’s retail load in a least cost fashion by utilizing PG&E owned generation, contract generation and market transactions in the Day Ahead market. The portfolio of generation the group is responsible for is large and diverse, ranging from nuclear power plants, hydro, gas power plants, geothermal, biomass, wind, solar and batteries.

The department also manages and documents transactions across transmission tie points between control areas, including confirming import and export information with counterparties; source, sink and each transmission segment for each schedule and tagging. The Department supports the Utility’s long-term electric procurement activities, including renewable resources and acquisition of power from outside the Utility’s service area, by providing operational and marketing expertise as well as system integration requirements. The Day Ahead Operations Department is an integral element of the Short-Term Electric Supply team and contributes/ receives input from the Real Time Operations team and the Market Design Integration team to manage Day Ahead transactions.

Position Summary

Day Ahead Analysts are responsible for bidding and scheduling of PG&E’s portfolio of generating units and associated water conveyance systems to ensure energy and ancillary service obligations are met. As part of this responsibility, the Day Ahead Analysts are also required to make assessments, develop strategies and implement those results throughout their workday. In addition, the Day Ahead Operations group interacts with the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) for managing PG&E’s generation and demand side resources to meet electric load obligations. The team also develops Day Ahead and Real Time operating strategies and business requirements for systems to interact with CAISO. 

The position is staffed on a Monday-Friday basis with rotational weekend and holiday coverage. This position is a Hybrid Role, based in Oakland and working from home.  Occasional travel to Vacaville and San Ramon maybe required for training and alternate head quarter operations.

PG&E is seeking a dedicated individual that can work in a fast-paced environment and possess the ability to work as an effective team member to perform these duties while complying with all required regulations, such as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the CAISO Tariff. Key capabilities include the ability to multi-task, maintain situational awareness, effectively communicate and make decisions quickly. Qualified candidates will need to have a strong motivation and capacity for learning. Additionally, this is a very team-oriented environment where team members rely heavily upon one another so the ability to work well with others in a professional manner is critical.

Due to the nature of our work, we are required to continually reevaluate, adapt, and enhance our processes and tools to deal with constant changing market conditions, rules, and regulations.  To accomplish this our team develops, builds, and maintains various tools built in a variety of coding languages (VBA, SQL, Python, R, DAX) and platforms/apps (Excel, PowerBi, Fico Xpress, R Shiny). 

This position is hybrid, working from your remote office and your assigned work location (Oakland, CA) based on business need.

PG&E is providing the salary range that the company in good faith believes it might pay for this position at the time of the job posting. This compensation range is specific to the locality of the job. The actual salary paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, geographic location, and internal equity. Although we estimate the successful candidate hired into this role will be placed between the entry point and the middle of the range, the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to these factors.​ This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs.

A reasonable salary range is:​

Bay Area Minimum: $87,000

Bay Area Maximum: $131,000

Job Responsibilities

Day Ahead Operations is seeking a dedicated individual to fill the position of a Day Ahead Analyst that can work in fast paced environment and possess the ability to work as an effective team member.

• Monitor PG&E portfolio generating unit status. Ensure energy and ancillary service obligations are met.
• Monitor:
  • Current water conditions (river flows and reservoirs levels) and maintains compliance with all rules and regulations
  • Availability of generating units
  • System constraints and market conditions. Modify generation schedules using ISO market transactions in the Day Ahead and Hour Ahead Scheduling Process markets.
• Provides input and recommendations to Real Time Asset Managers on generation schedules and/or water management issues.
• Develops solutions to increase efficiency of team operations.
• Expand knowledge of the CAISO Wholesale Market Rules and Market Participants.
• Analyze/quantify impacts of new CAISO initiatives (e.g. intermittent generation, demand response, resource adequacy, new supply within and outside the PG&E Service Territory and CAISO control areas) that directly impact Day Ahead Operations’ activities and provides an initial assessment and recommendations (economic and operational).
• Prepare reports and presentations for commercial team and officers.
• Contribute and assist in the development of regulatory filings.
• Develop desk procedures and maintain existing procedures.
• Provide forecasting of market and load data needed to support procurement in the Day Ahead market.
• Develop a functional understanding of an activity that is a key element of the electric procurement process (e.g., load forecasting, optimization)

Qualifications

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in a quantitative discipline such as Engineering, Math, Economics or related discipline, or equivalent experience.
• Requires a minimum of 1 year relevant experience

Desired Qualifications:

• Strong Process Improvement mindset
• The position requires strong computer skills, including but not limited to Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Power BI, SharePoint).
• Some VBA experience such as:
  • the ability to improve the functionality of Excel spreadsheets by creating custom macros and user-defined functions
  • creation of scripts to handle tasks like data entry, report generation and data analysis
  • basic debugging and trouble shooting skills.

• Knowledge of electric system operations or resource planning
• Knowledge of hydro/fossil/renewable generation, operations, and modeling
• Understanding of PG&E hydroelectric systems including a mechanical understanding of units and components.
• Computer programming experience – VBA, SQL, Python, R
• Mathematical modeling skills including knowledge or familiarity with Xpress/Mosel or other optimization/programming systems
• Knowledge of CAISO protocols, tariffs and tools.
• Basic understanding electric markets.
• Understanding of electric transmission systems, interconnection and tagging.

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