Shift Engineer - I, II, Senior

Southwest Power Pool (SPP) is about more than power. We’re about the power of relationships. Our employees have the opportunity to work together to ensure electricity is delivered reliably and affordably to the millions of people living in our service territory. We have been voted one of Arkansas’ Best Places to work by Arkansas Business and we are looking for a member of our team who is passionate about our mission to keep the lights on!

We have a core ideology here at SPP that we stand by: Do the right thing, for the right reason, in the right way.

We believe in supporting our employees through a fantastic benefits package:

• Competitive pay with bonus opportunities
• Excellent insurance package including three great medical plans to choose from, employer-paid short term disability, long term disability, and life insurance
• Relocation assistance
• Fantastic contributions to your retirement through a 401(k) savings plan with employer-match benefits and a defined benefit plan fully funded by SPP

Overview

The Engineer in the Real-Time Technical Analysis & Support group is responsible for engineering analysis and real-time engineering support of engineering applications, processes, and services associated with the performance of all Coordinated Operations responsibilities assigned to SPP Staff with primary focus on engineering support of Real Time Market Operations and Real Time system reliability.  The proper performance of these responsibilities prevents power outages and maintains reliable and economical electric service in the SPP region.  As such, accurate and effective engineering decision making, sometimes in stressful situations, is required.  The incumbent may assist in the development of other personnel in engineering positions.  Minimal travel is required.  Working on a shift rotation is required.  

The Engineer in the Real-Time Technical Analysis & Support group reports to the Supervisor, Real-Time Engineering. The Engineer is expected to work with minimal supervision.

Essential Functions

• Monitoring, supporting, and improving the applications used by Reliability, Tariff, Scheduling, Balancing, and Market Operators. Ensure all systems and processes use correct input data and produce correct and accurate results for Operators to base their decisions.
• Identify needed ICCP data to maintain superior real-time monitoring and state estimator results.
• Work with Members to obtain all necessary Reliability and Market related changes as they pertain to the operational models used in EMS.
• Assist in testing and implementing necessary software changes as requested or applicable for Operations based applications such as EMS, ICCP, and MOS.
• Support in analyzing any normal/abnormal events and make recommended changes to processes/software.
• Support, develop, and improve Operations applications such as Real Time Contingency Analysis, Load Forecast application, Market Flow calculator, Market System, Constraint Manager.
• Research, document and report issues reported by SPP Staff, SPP Members, non-Members, and Market Participants related to results of any of the systems used by the Reliability, Tariff, Market and Scheduling desks
• Request and collect information, prepare and validate data, execute computer runs for current, next-day, and other operational assessments of the transmission network including, but not limited to, reliability analysis and market feasibility analysis.
• Collect information, prepare and validate data, execute computer runs for coordination and approval of generation and transmission maintenance outage requests, especially emergency and forced outage requests.
• Continuously monitor both market and reliability systems (e.g., State Estimator, RTCA, RTGEN, MFC, STLF/MTLF, RTBM, RUC) and take actions as necessary to maintain accuracy of results and maintain reliability.
• Respond quickly and accurately to unexpected events such as sudden Transmission System loading, suspect real time data feeds from Members, interruption of data exchange between systems, partial failures of one or more of the systems.
• Develop and periodically update SPP network model data as necessary for near-real time analysis.
• Make recommendations to management on long-range coordinated operations goals and objectives.
• Adhere to and enforce SPP Policies and Procedures.

• Communicate with SPP members, non-members, consultants, and other various participants concerning applicable and appropriate activities occurring in the SPP Coordination Center.
• Assist the Manager, Operations Engineering and other Operations Engineers with any special projects.
• Coach other Engineers in the Real-Time Technical Analysis and Support group helping them understand all r