Regional Strategic Planning Technical Lead - West Midlands

at  National Grid

ABOUT US

The creation of National Energy System Operator (NESO) is driven by an urgent need to unify and optimise our approach to energy. A more integrated and coordinated strategy is needed to meet the unprecedented challenges of climate change, ensuring secure energy supply, and keeping costs manageable for consumers.
Join us and empower your potential, energise our team, and be part of something bigger.
Your energy, our future, together.

ABOUT YOU

We’re forging the path, and we know we can’t do it alone. That’s why we need visionary minds like yours to join us on this transformative journey. In this case, we’re looking for someone who:

• To deliver RESP requires a diverse team made up of individuals with a wide range of skills and knowledge which are unlikely to be present in a single individual. Key skills and experience we are looking for are:
• Technical experience within and knowledge of the energy sector including of energy scenarios
• An understanding of the ‘whole energy’ system – with experience in one of the energy vectors (gas and/or electricity networks, heat decarbonisation, hydrogen, transport decarbonisation, etc)
• Experience of working with or within energy distribution and/or transmission companies, ideally relevant to the region(s) you seek to work within
• Understanding and experience of geospatial data modelling, ideally applied in energy planning, including knowledge of data management procedures
• Understanding and experience of applying common methods and assumptions and validation of data
• Ability to translate complex and technical information into easily understandable messaging for non-technical audiences
• Experience of communicating with, and influencing, internal and external stakeholders at a range of levels
• Project management, coordination and planning skills to ensure that deadlines are met, governance is adhered to, stakeholders are effectively engaged and high quality process and outputs are achieved
• An inquisitive mind with the ability to join the dots and a willingness to learn about new areas of work
• Training and development of the team will be a key priority as we set up RESP. Successful individuals may be asked to help train other team members and also have the opportunity to be trained on less familiar areas.

ABOUT THE ROLE

National Energy System Operator (NESO) recognises the potential of bright and talented individuals, and we encourage you to join us as Great Britain’s energy system undergoes an ambitious, exciting, and vital transformation. Together with industry, we are creating a cleaner, more sustainable energy future.
It’s not every day that you have an opportunity to be the first to establish an energy team in the West Midlands.
The (NESO) is taking on the exciting new role of being the Regional Energy Strategic Planning Technical Lead. We will be responsible for developing Regional Energy Strategic Plans (RESPs) for 11 regions across Great Britain, empowered through recent Ofgem decisions and an ongoing consultation.
The West Midlands RESP will need to reflect regional characteristics, driving whole energy considerations across all energy vectors. Think renewables, heat decarbonisation, hydrogen, energy networks, transport and flexibility! And how each region’s needs differ yet come together in forming the Great British energy plan.
To achieve this, we need a West Midlands based team – to work alongside our other regional and central teams in forming the hub and spokes needed for energy planning to benefit from and reflect local inputs.
Developing the West Midlands RESP will require us to work with organisations at a local level (‘local actors’) including local government and gas and electricity networks, to improve understanding of the infrastructure needed in different parts of the country and attract investment for projects. Stakeholder engagement will be key to unlocking the benefits of integrated regional energy planning.
The purpose of this job is to be the technical engagement lead. You will apply your technical energy and system planning understanding and skill in leading engagement with technical audiences and coordinating technical and data interfaces with the central and other regional teams in developing RESPs. This will include inputting into specific energy aspects of the whole energy system as part of the team and wider NESO, engagement with energy system planning stakeholders, strengthening cross-team working, and leading your regions work in gaining and validating local energy insights into RESP. This will include you inputting into the methodology and assumptions behind regional energy strategic planning, consulting and communicating these with stakeholders, understand how local energy systems inputs align, and working with others in NESO to validate these.
Having an understanding and lived experience of West Midlands will be key.

The role accountabilities will be dependent on the successful candidate’s experience, knowledge and interest. There will be flexibility, to reflect regional and ESO needs, in the composition of each regional team. We need people that will contribute or lead on the following accountabilities:

• To take ownership and understand technical specific aspects of your region’s energy system planning inputs into developing the RESP including the interfaces with local and national data, central RESP methodology and assumptions.
• To develop, consult and then implement parts of the RESP methodology within your region relating to gaining, validating and balancing technical and spatial planning energy inputs
• Ownership of obtaining and validating regional geospatial energy inputs, coordinating with the central team
• To work in a matrix style structure within the wider regional energy strategic planning team to ensure work your leading upon is coordinated with other regional and central RESP teams
• To represent NESO’s regional energy planning function to energy system planners and energy leads within local government, gas and electricity networks, and other local actors
• To understand, engage and gain required and beneficial inputs from stakeholders in developing the RESP to the prescribed methodology; being able to clearly communicate and propose changes where needed to key assumptions
• To work with the central team in developing geospatial visualisations to support regional insights and communicating to stakeholders key changes in the energy system
• To create new ways to analyse and present problems and potential solutions, sometimes building on the work and experience of others to quickly develop sufficient understanding of unfamiliar topics in developing the RES