Director, Grid Integration

About us:

BlueWave's mission is to protect our planet by transforming access to renewable energy. As a pioneering renewable energy company that develops and owns solar and battery storage projects, The BlueWave team has a long track record of success and is developing several gigawatts of solar and battery storage projects throughout the United States to ensure our grid is reliable and efficient in a clean energy future. BlueWave is proud to be a certified B Corp, recognized by B Labs as "Best for the World" in Governance.

About the role:

The Director of Grid Integration shall have overall responsibility to administer the firm’s grid integration practice – for distribution and transmission-level interconnection requests. The role is effectively one of a player-coach - partly a specialist individual contributor and partly a team manager. The Director reports to the Chief Development Officer and will manage a small team of engineers and analysts.

What you'll do:

• Lead end-to-end grid integration strategy and delivery by playing a key role in site selection; leading interconnection queue application, study assessment, and agreement negotiation processes; and providing strategic guidance and coordination during construction
• Identify optimum locations on the grid with potential for interregional transmission expansion or interconnecting large volumes of generation resources, based on interconnection characteristics, planned utility investments, and other market specifics
• Deploy deep knowledge and understanding of interconnection configurations and engineering parameters to reduce interconnection costs and turnaround. Collaborate with internal teams on interconnection aspects (costs, schedules, options)
• Support interconnection engineers on strategies for negotiating alternatives, lower costs and shorter timelines for BW’s benefit with utilities/RTOs. Assist in difficult project issues
• Continuously improve intra- and inter-team processes
• Actively follow RTO stakeholder meetings and state industry advocacy groups to both stay abreast for policy changes that could impact company’s development portfolio
• Advocate for policy and regulatory change towards lower market level interconnection barriers
• Oversee contractual arrangements with consultants and subcontractors necessary to support a broad range of grid analyses; drive down costs
• Support commercial analytics team in performing detailed nodal and zonal market analysis with power flow analyses
• Have a commercial mindset and creativity with the willingness and flexibility to work in a fast-paced work environment with constantly shifting priorities

Qualifications:

• Excellent communication (written and verbal) skills, including ability to distill complex and technical information for non-technical audiences
• Ability to develop and maintain strategic relationships with utility and ISO representatives, external engineering firms, and service providers
• Ability to work well on a team in a fast-paced environment and manage tight deadlines
• Be detail orientated and possess interpersonal and organizational skills.
• Strong engineering, analytical and quantitative skills
• At least 10 years of experience with relevant interconnection work
• Bachelor's degree in electrical or power engineering required
• Master’s degree in electrical engineering, or relevant power-related field is preferred
• Strong experience in ISO-NE/NYISO/MISO/PJM and distributed generation markets preferred
• Self-starter and willing to persevere with solving thorny problems
• Demonstrated knowledge of grid planning and/or electric market principles with experience utilizing at least one of the common grid analytics tools like PSS/E, PSLF, PowerGEM TARA,PROMOD, GRIDVIEW, UPLAN, PLEXOS, AURORA, etc.
• Planning level knowledge of substation configurations, transmission line design and ratings, and cost estimates
• Understand solar and storage project single line diagrams and layouts, utility infrastructure and interconnection processes, technical aspects of utility interconnection materials, policy, incentives and tariff implications on interconnection applications

The anticipated salary range for this role is $165,000 - $190,000 per year + bonus.

Compensation will be influenced