Grid Innovation Engineer, Expert

Requisition ID # 165201

Job Category: Engineering / Science

Job Level: Individual Contributor

Business Unit: Engineering, Planning & Strategy

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland

Department Overview

Help us change the electric utility industry from the inside! Join a small, high-performing team within

Pacific Gas & Electric Company that is scaling up integration with distributed energy resources (DERs)

to transform the electric grid from the edges inward.

PG&E is seeking an experienced energy business professional to join the Grid Innovation team within

the larger Utility Partnerships & Innovation (UPI) group. The Grid Innovation team evaluates and

demonstrates emerging technologies, concepts, and processes that PG&E will need to design and

operate the resilient energy system of the future. Toward that end, the team works collaboratively

with diverse stakeholders across the enterprise to design, build, test and operationalize product

strategies, roadmaps and implementation plans for innovation. The current focus of the Grid

Innovation team is to build and advance policies, products and processes to operationalize

Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) such as solar PV, battery storage, flexible loads and microgrids.

This team is an important bridge between PG&E’s DER policy and strategy and how PG&E will plan

for, interconnect and interact with or operate DERs on a day-to-day basis.

Position Summary

The Expert Grid Innovation Engineer will primarily be supporting a mixture of DER enablement and

load growth scaling initiatives as part of the larger Distributed Energy Resource Management System

(DERMS) Initiative. The initial DERMS use cases are designed to unlock new capacity on the

distribution grid and include: Flexible Service Connection, Flexible Generation Interconnection and

the operationalization of Distribution Investment Deferral projects (i.e. Non Wires Alternatives). The

focus of the Grid Innovation Engineer will be on the development and implementation of these

use cases and the development of new operational and business processes to support these use

cases at scale as a standard PG&E offerings and programs.

A strong applicant will be an organized self-starter who is biased towards action and can operate

with general direction only, to fill in the blanks and drive concepts to reality, while being mindful and

sensitive to building consensus and buy-in across the organization. This execution-oriented

candidate will collaborate with PG&E subject matter experts and external partners across the

organization and with other utilities and industry partners and vendors. The role is expected to have

the technical, analytical, and power systems skills to structure analysis, process data, and at times run

system studies within this role itself and the project managerial skills to be the point person for a

multiple stakeholder cross-Utility initiative.

This position is based out of PG&E’s General Office in downtown Oakland, CA.

The team has a hybrid work model primarily working remotely with the expectation of working from

Oakland office several days per month minimum. In-person activities will focus on synchronous

collaboration, affinity building, ideation, or planning activities. Most day-to-day work (individual and

collaborative) will be performed remotely. The role may also require occasional travel other PG&E

facilities throughout the PG&E service territory.

This position is hybrid, working from your remote office and your assigned work location based on

business need. The assigned work location will be within the PG&E Service Territory. Work location

will be determined by hiring leader and successful candidate. This position is classified as a “hybrid

remote” (0-3 days in the office) and also may require occasional travel within the PG&E service

territory to project site locations.

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.

A reasonable salary range is:

Bay Area Minimum: $140,000

Bay Area Maximum: $238,000

And/Or

California Minimum: $133,000

California Maximum: $226,000

Job Responsibilities

Lead the development and implementation of PG&E’s Flexible Service Connection and Flexible

Generation Interconnection programs.

• Manage the end-to-end site development process from customer intake, to technical site

analysis, to customer agreements, to site development and commissioning and operations.

• Support site evaluation engineering analysis to identify suitability for participation in the Flex

Connect programs.

• Lead customer engagement activities to recruit and onboard customer sites as pilots to test

the DERMS use cases initially focused on facilitating cost-effective interconnection of DERs

and new load service connections.

• Work with internal partner stakeholders in Electric Distribution Planning, Service Planning,

Clean Energy Transportation, and others to develop end-to-end business process

integrations to support the site development process.

Mature Flex Service/Gen Connect as standard offering that can scale over time.

• Create the roadmap identifying the key steps to get to future scaled programs and standard

offerings (regulatory/tariff, customer program(s), process dev for service/distribution

planning, commissioning, operations)

• Identify near term and future roles and responsibilities for the scaled program.

• Support development of the business case for existing and emergent DERMS use cases and

programs.

Support the Grid Innovation Portfolio

• Role will evolve to take technical leadership roles within emergent R&D and Innovation

projects within the Grid Innovation portfolio.

• Provide teammates with technical support on other projects and initiatives as needed

potentially including DER Integration and Microgrid project implementation

• Act as a technical subject matter expert in relevant policy and regulatory discussions, working

groups or proceedings (e.g. High DER OIR, Rule 21 working groups, Smart Inverter Working

Group etc.)

Qualifications

Minimum:

• Bachelor’s degree in engineering or equivalent experience

Internal

• Experience with grid modeling software (e.g. CYMDIST, PSLF, Aspen, etc.)

• 7 years of electric utility related experience

Desired:

• Electrical Engineering Degree with Power Systems emphasis

• Masters of Science in Engineering,

• Electrical Engineering Professional Engineer (P.E.) license

• Experience deploying technology to the field at PG&E and understanding of PG&E project

management processes

• Experience leading technology pilots and/or implementations, with a focus on

emerging/innovative technology

• Strong technical acumen with the ability to understand different distribution management

applications and DER functions and platforms.

• Demonstratable understanding of DERs and flexible loads such as solar PV, inverters, energy

storage, conventional generation, microgrid controllers and/or off grid energy systems

• Understanding of distribution grid design, system planning/operations engineering practices

and tools (e.g., CYME, or other equivalent software for power system modeling)

• Knowledge and experience with DER (Distributed Energy Resource) communications

protocols – IEEE 2030.5, CSIP 2.1, Open ADR etc.

• Policy experience on Electric Rule 21 and interconnection tariff issues

• Experience leading cross cutting programs or technology deployments, with a focus on

emerging/innovative technologies and creating new process & structure for rapid scale-up.

Desired Characteristics:

• Biased towards action

• Concise

• Passionate

• Able to operate at different levels of abstraction

• Outcome focused while understanding and adhering to process where necessary

• Empathic and curious – has an ability to seek to understand while driving towards shared

outcomes

• Strong verbal / written communication and presentation skills

• Ability to work in a matrixed environment and a positive execution-oriented mentality

• Ability to be creative, versatile, efficient and productive in the face of ambiguity

Full Time