Virtual Power Plant Operations Lead-Texas

Virtual Power Plant – Operations Lead Texas

Position Summary:

The Operations Lead is a technical and operational supervisory asset in the sonnen VPP Operations group. Primarily working from within the local market, the Operations Lead for Texas must have a deep understanding of utility billing and energy accounting practices as they relate to Solar, Energy Storage, PPA management and ERCOT accounting standards. The Operations Lead for Texas will perform specific billing and energy monitoring functions essential to our VPP operations in the deregulated ERCOT market. Under direction of their direct supervisor, the Operations Lead Texas will be responsible for coordinating with field engineers, supervising other Operations staff, supporting sonnen related aspects of VPP projects, establishing/ maintaining processes for the market, and managing ongoing operations of VPP as it relates to our Texas model. In the office, the Operations Lead is responsible for the overall daily activities of the VPP Operations team in Texas as well as participating in overall national VPP coordination’s. They are responsible directly to any assigned projects in their various stages of development or operations. This is a key coordination and process building position that requires great attention to detail, time management skills, and ability to coordinate people remotely to accomplish tasks. The Operations Lead Texas will be additionally responsible for delegating above tasks with the Operations team to ensure department KPI’s are tracked and met. Process creation, maintenance, and reporting are key tasks the lead is primarily responsible for as well. This is a light travel position, that is up to 10% travel as needed to visit and coordinate site activities.

Key Responsibilities:

1. Support sonnen VPP personnel on sites with technical, logistical, and project coordination tasks
2. Support partners with technical coordination, VPP installation / design support, and system troubleshooting as support to field engineers
3. Proactively monitor and schedule support on VPP communities as assigned
4. Work with VPP Executive staff to build and implement a unique billing/ energy accounting software and process for our market entry offering
5. Supervise team members in support of the VPP communities they have been assigned to
6. Resolve technical cases as assigned, using all available tools to solve problems and maintain high up time percentages in accordance with KPI’s
7. Supervise team members with escalation support for technical cases as needed
8. Answer incoming phone calls and email from our VPP partners, support the field engineering staff, guiding them to resolve issues, and providing general support per the KPI’s
9. Ensure a high level of VPP support to our partners and customer in supervisory support of team members
10. Develop and maintain key documentation and tools as they relate to projects and ongoing VPP activities
11. Utilize Salesforce and other designated tools to document relevant call activity to ensure proper data capture, issue tracking, and community specific activities
12. Other duties as necessary to ensure high quality, proactive, customer focused service

Key Performance Indicators

1. Respond to all internal and external partner calls for support within the same working day (during normal business hours)
2. Resolve all Sales Force cases within prescribed timelines. Average of less than 3 working days for all cases assigned.
3. Identify and assign corrective action on monitored VPP’s within 1 working day
4. Provide weekly project updates and statistics as defined on a project basis to the appropriate parties
5. Manage and report on KPI’s for the operation department as a whole
6. Provide regular updates and executive summaries of KPI’s to supervisor
7. Provide on-time reporting of energy accounting to key stakeholders per the procedure to be built and rolled out at the direction of this lead position

Qualifications:

1. 3+ years of technical support experience support within solar, electronics, or technology industries
2. 2+ years supervisory experience with proven track record in collaboration, goal setting, goal achieving and managing a team effectively to achieve KPI’s
3. Direct experience building or working with an advanced energy accounting software platform (Utility or Retail Energy Billing)
4. Direct experience working in the deregulated ERCOT market
5. Prior experience in project management role
6. Strong oral and written skills and interpersonal communication skills
7. Proven track record in team management and time bound, high quality production projects
8. “Problem Solver” mentality. Someone who loves to understand and resolve difficult problems
9. Highly organized with the ability to clearly organize thoughts, schedules, reports, and databases
10. Ability to understand complicated technical information and communicate such information to non-experts
11. Enthusiasm, creativity, and a desire to learn
12. Intelligent, accountable, and self-assured mentality with a strong work ethic.

Preferred Qualifications:

1. Bachelor’s degree in business or technical related field
2. Strong interests in technology, renewable energy, and or energy storage
3. Experience as a senior Operations or Billing supervisor for a Texas Retail Electric Provider or as an ERCOT representative