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.

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

Connect programs.

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

and new load service connections.

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.

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

planning, commissioning, operations)

programs.

Support the Grid Innovation Portfolio

projects within the Grid Innovation portfolio.

potentially including DER Integration and Microgrid project implementation

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

Group etc.)

Qualifications

Minimum:

Internal

Desired:

management processes

emerging/innovative technology

applications and DER functions and platforms.

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

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

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

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

Desired Characteristics:

outcomes