Renewable Energy Atmospheric Scientist and Modeler
Location: US
Language: Fluent English and ability to speak other languages helpful
About ArcVera Renewables
ArcVera Renewables is a leading renewable energy technical consultancy providing finance-grade commercial and technical services for hybrid, wind, solar, and battery storage projects and supporting green energy supply for green hydrogen and Power-to-X applications. The ArcVera Team is dedicated to delivering best-in-class services across the project lifecycle to meet the needs of landowners, project developers, investors, project owners, and operators globally. ArcVera has advised project stakeholders to make confident decisions and maximum advantage by delivering trustworthy insights for over four decades. ArcVera offers accuracy-driven technical services, including prospecting, resource assessment, technology evaluation, project design, independent technical and financial engineering, plant optimization, and operations. ArcVera’s global headquarters are in Golden, Colorado, with subsidiaries in Brazil, India, and South Africa and a business presence on all continents except Antarctica.
Key Responsibilities:
Help maintain the mesoscale modeling system and cloud-based high-performance computing (HPC) environment for the purpose of internal and client delivery and research and development in wind, solar, and battery storage:
● Trouble-shoot, advance, simplify, streamline, and maintain ArcVera’s cloud-based HPC environment, including the set-up of a cloud-based compute cluster and the necessary infrastructure for building and running the Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model
● Provide feedback to the mesoscale team lead on software features and potentially helpful new features, completing upgrades in Python
● Maintain version-controlled Python-based software stack using GitHub.
● Maintain up-to-date documentation of the end-to-end mesoscale modeling process within ArcVera
● Prepare legacy datasets for archival and short-term and long-term cloud storage
● Prepare bespoke client and internal production systems and client deliverables
Creating mesoscale model datasets in support of renewable energy projects:
● Gather relevant GIS data describing key renewable energy project parameters
● Define model domain in GIS software, accounting for local terrain and project elements
● Set up and run mesoscale model simulations on cloud computing platform
● Carry out post-processing of model output on cloud computing platform
● Perform bias correction of post-processed model output and produce final products for both internal use and external client delivery for wind, solar, and hybrid renewable energy projects.
● Recognize and troubleshoot the end-to-end model dataset creation process
● Work closely with ArcVera renewable energy project managers to respond promptly and reliably to requests for new datasets or updates to postprocessing of existing datasets and to deliver requested products in a timely fashion
● Manage potentially several model dataset creation or update projects in various stages simultaneously
Talents And Experience Required:
● You have 5+ years’ professional experience in an atmospheric science, geophysical, or related field
● You have 5+ years’ professional experience building, maintaining, and running an atmospheric model on a large supercomputing cluster, preferably cloud-based
● You are an accomplished Python programmer with renewable energy applications experience
● You have earned a graduate degree in atmospheric science, a related physical science field, or computer science
● You desire to embrace new opportunities and thrive in a fast-paced, constantly evolving environment
● You are able to work from home or an office without loss of capability
● You have a working knowledge of the Unix/Linux computing environment, Microsoft Office software (especially Excel), GIS software such as ArcGIS, QGIS, or similar, and Google Earth
● You have a working knowledge of a computing cluster environment, including queuing systems (e.g. slurm), advanced compilers such as Intel, and package managers such as Spack.
● You thrive in a team environment and are responsible to team members
● You are proactive and resourceful—you take the initiative to ask, learn, and make things happen
● You are a detail-oriented planner—you look ahead and stay on top of things
● You have an ability to see “the big picture” while staying aligned with the company vision
Employee Compensation and Benefits:
● Company-paid healthcare, 50% match up to 8% on 401k
● Access to high-quality medical, dental, vision, supplemental, and life insurance programs
● Annual results-based company bonus and spot bonuses for exceptional value creation
● Four weeks of Paid Time Off for full-time Salaried Employees
● Five Paid Holidays
● Clean Energy Transition Benefits
● Paid Maternity/Paternity Leave for new parents
● Remote work and flexible schedule
● Salary commensurate with experience
Key Performance Indicators
● Meet or beat research and development project development timelines
● Achieve billable client hours targets per month
● Positive feedback from both internal and external clients on the timeliness, accuracy, quality, and reliability of your deliverables
● Demonstrated success at maintaining the mesoscale archive and documentation
● Achieve annual goals set in the performance review process