Senior Grid Innovation Engineer

Requisition ID # 172626 

Job Category: Engineering / Science 

Job Level: Individual Contributor

Business Unit: Strategy & Growth

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland

Job Title: Senior Grid Innovation Engineer
Job Code: 51986179

Team Summary

The Grid Innovation Delivery (GID) team is making the grid of the future a reality. The team scales new technologies and pilots into sustainable, mature programs that PG&E utilizes to deliver for our hometowns and serve our planet. The team bridges early R&D innovation efforts and PG&E’s established lines of business.  

The Remote Grid (RG) Program is the GID team’s primary product today. Remote Grids cost-effectively address wildfire risk by serving customers with fully islanded (24/7/365) microgrids of solar, batteries, and fuel-powered generation and permanently removing high-risk overhead power lines. The GID team has deployed and supports the operation of 18 RGs with plans to grow the fleet to two dozen in the next two years. See the RG Program page here, as well as media coverage from the PG&E newsroom here.
 
Position Summary

This Senior-level Grid Innovation Delivery Engineer is an electrical engineering thought leader, who builds the knowledge base and collaboratively develops innovative solutions to increase safety, reliability, decarbonization, and affordability. They develop new standards and process documentation to mature the program.

Grid Innovation Delivery Engineers also take full ownership of each project’s technical execution throughout its lifecycle: The project engineer iterates on the project design with Engineering Procurement, and Construction (EPC) vendors with attention to safety, customer need, environmental impacts, constructability, and maintenance. They analyze microgrid energy modeling and product sizing to ensure right-fit solutions and compliance with technical and construction specifications, including approval of testing and Go-Live operations. Once a project is live, they continue to support Operations and Maintenance (O&M) through performance analytics, identification of operational improvements, and root cause investigations.   

A strong applicant will be an organized and diligent collaborator, proactively driving a broad range of technical and cross-functional tasks. They will collaborate closely with other Grid Innovation Engineers, PG&E groups (e.g. project management, environmental, asset management), and external partners. This is a well-rounded engineering role with flexibility to leverage the applicant’s unique skillset to own specific responsibilities and to pursue development opportunities. Experience with electrical engineering design or civil engineering design is a plus.

This position is Hybrid, primarily working from your remote office within PG&E’s service territory. In-person activities at PG&E’s new Oakland General Office are based on business needs, focusing on synchronous collaboration, affinity building, ideation, or planning activities (1-2 times per week). The role will also require travel to sites throughout the PG&E service territory (need varies, 6 times a year on average). After the first year, this role is eligible to apply for an alternative 9/80 schedule (eight nine-hour days and one eight-hour day over a two-week period). Project engineers rotate “on call” duties for operational projects to support engineering troubleshooting during rare system outages.
 

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.  We would not anticipate that the individual hired into this role would land at or near the top half of the range described below, but the decision will be dependent on the facts and circumstances of each case.
 

A reasonable salary range is:
 
Bay Area Minimum: $122,0000
Bay Area Mid-point: $158,000
Bay Area Maximum: $194,000

This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs.

 
Core Responsibilities:

•    Assist customers and PG&E stakeholders in assessing the viability and requirements to develop distributed energy technology projects
•    Collaborate with external vendors, other utilities, manufacturers, and internal teams (e.g. engineering, IT, and standards departments) on advancing new distributed energy resources applications
•    Understand the various data streams that are needed to model microgrid behavior
•    Meet with stakeholders to better understand their issues and inform them of the potential impacts
•    Explore, innovate, and demonstrate technologies that deliver safe, reliable, and affordable energy solutions
•    Identify conditions when distributed energy resources may provide more benefits to the customers and the grid
•    Assist in assessments of potential distributed energy resources risks 
•    Assist in material prep and/or presenting for technical experts in regulatory proceedings and industry working groups

Minimum Qualifications:

• Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or equivalent experience
• Experience with grid modeling software (e.g. CYMDIST, PSLF, Aspen, etc.)
• 5 years of electric utility related experience

Desired Qualifications:
•    Experience working at or with developers of distributed energy resources 
•    Understanding of construction, electrical, and power system protection design 
•    Experience driving technology R&D through pilots and scale-up in the face of ambiguity
•    Knowledge of applicable laws, codes, and standards for microgrids or distribution service
•    Experience with the following design tools: HOMER, PVSyst, AutoCAD, Bluebeam, and Google Earth. Proficient in Microsoft Office Suite and Microsoft 365.
•    Experience analyzing energy data (Excel and SQL at a minimum; Pandas, NumPy, or R desired)
•    Effectively communicate highly complex ideas with credibility, confidence, and clarity to diverse audiences using verbal, written, and visual means
•    Bias toward action with a strong sense of ownership and empathy
•    Masters of Science in Engineering (Electrical preferred)
•    Licensed Engineer-in-Training or Professional Engineer (P.E. Electrical preferred) in the State of California
•    Bachelor’s in Engineering (Electrical preferred) 
•    5 years of job-related experience