Sr Specialist Operational Assessments MTI

The Opportunity

This opportunity is for the Operational Assessments team and the functions described below will be focused on the forward markets, the integration of new technologies into Operations and supporting of Operations through after-the-fact analysis and reporting. This position plays a critical role in enabling OA to deliver on its core mandate. This position is a technical role that is primarily responsible for the daily monitoring of the power system and market operation including any required follow up activities such as reporting, procedure updates and training. It is also responsible for the reliable integration of new market processes and technologies into operations, providing support to key IESO projects that support the IESO's enterprise objectives including capacity and resource acquisition, and enable resources to deliver on capacity/participate in the IESO-administered markets. In addition, this role leads the execution of forward markets including the Transmission Rights Market and capacity exports that help to ensure cost-effective system reliability.

What you'll be doing

• Lead development of appropriate processes to support Operations activities. Identify the objectives of business processes, assess the risk of not meeting those objectives and identify process controls to mitigate risk as appropriate. Document process objectives, tasks, risks and controls in summary documentation (e.g. risk-control matrices).
• Provide guidance and mentorship to other members of the team. This may include problem resolution, training, and quality checks on their work.
• Work with SMEs within and outside Operations as necessary to integrate new technology/market design into IESO Operations by:
  • Determining different stakeholders impacted and coordinate development of appropriate processes, tools and procedures to enable seamless integration
  • Managing risks by developing proper controls and monitoring to ensure that processes/tools are functioning as designed
• Liaise with Operations staff to understand issues with the performance of existing operational tools, and follow-up with relevant groups including Information Technology (IT) to facilitate their resolution.
• Maintain a current knowledge of Operations processes (including but not limited to day-ahead scheduling, control room procedures, real-time scheduling) for the purposes of interpreting and assessing the priority of issues regarding Operations tools and processes.
• Oversee execution of forward market functions in a timely manner and track their performance by
• Coordinating with different business units within operations to conduct assessment of forward market participation requests, preparation of required inputs for forward market execution, and reporting of results
• Developing proper monitoring including tools to assess validity of results against the market objectives
• Contribute to, lead and manage internal and external working groups and provide Operations perspective by participating in various stakeholder engagements that impact the operation of the IESO administered markets.
• Assess the effectiveness of new programs and potential solutions to address operational and market inefficiencies.
• Support, as required, specialized system and market efficiency studies
• Provide support, as required to other business units, agencies, and market participants to fulfill strategic plans.
• Ensure proper development of end user computing tools as necessary to support Operations tasks, including operation of the IESO controlled grid and operation of the IESO administered markets.
• Lead assessment of operational events for their compliance with legislation, regulations and standards including the market rules and market manuals, NERC standards and NPCC criteria Where needed, conduct root cause analysis to develop appropriate mitigation plans to contain IESO's compliance risk exposure.
• Lead ex-post and ex-ante operational assessments to identify operating and ancillary services' needs to mitigate any reliability and operability risks. Where required, assist appropriate business units in procuring these services to meet reliability and operability needs.
• On an on-going basis, assist process owners/stewards in reviewing the effectiveness of existing Operations processes. Recommend, develop and implement effectiveness and efficiency improvements, as necessary.
• Work with subject matter experts from different business units to produce business process documentations including procedural instructions for Operations activities. Ensure that the documentation is consistent with NERC standards, NPCC criteria, the market rules, relevant government regulations and other industry standards, and is consistent with IESO processes for managing controlled documents. Ensure that the documentation is appropriate for the targeted audience (e.g. internal vs market manuals) and contains the appropriate level of detail.
• Support and as necessary lead maintaining operating agreements with transmitters and interconnection agreements with our neighbours
• Provide guidance to other business units on market operations including, but not limited to, clarifying policies and principles in making operational decisions.
• Perform other duties as required.

What you need to succeed

Education:

• Requires an engineering knowledge of electrical theory, power system analysis and control, mathematics, computer science, economics and other specialty related courses to undertake engineering, economic or analytical studies related to the management and control of the bulk power system.
• Requires knowledge of technical writing to prepare effective reports and data analysis to conduct quantitative assessments.

This knowledge is considered to be normally acquired, either through the successful completion of a four-year university education in an appropriate field/discipline or by having the equivalent education.

Experience:

• Requires exposure to the overall power system operation.
• Requires an overall understanding of the IESO-Administered Markets, their operation and the characteristic of the interconnected systems to support the activities of the IESO.
• Requires excellent facility in written and oral communications, including the ability to prepare effective documentation, recommendations and reports.
• Requires experience to develop a good overall understanding of system and market operation practices and procedures, including legislation, regulatory standards, resource utilization, and, system control orders and an ability to undertake complex market or system event analysis.
• Requires working with multiple stakeholders including customers and good judgement in dealing with multiple priorities.
• Requires computer experience including exposure to statistical and database software, desktop software applications, computer data conversion, various PC-based query and calculation tools, and computer system interfaces.
• Requires experience in applying, testing and considering the merits of alternatives.
• Requires good customer service skills.

Experience will be related to the fields of:

• The IESO Administered Markets and interconnected power system operations
• Reliability and operability assessment
• NERC, NPCC and IESO Market Rules compliance assessments

Background experience will include:

• Electrical engineering design concepts as they relate to the functions and characteristics of power system components
• Familiarity with power system operation, practices, and policies
• Familiarity with energy and forward market operations, practices, policies, and Market Rules
• Competitive market operations
• Particulars of power system operation, including technical features of generation and transmission equipment and facilities, system interconnection
• A period of over 8 years, up to and including 10 years is considered necessary to gain this experience.