The post holder will be responsible for leading on the development of commercial relationships with suitable flexible assets, which could be of interest to the Ecotricity Smart Grid (ESG) offering. With the VPP Growth Officer and Technical Integration Officer reporting to the role, the incumbent will be responsible for growing the client base of Ecolibrium, Ecotricity Smart Grid’s Virtual Power Plant (VPP) platform.
The Commercial team is also responsible for liaising with the Grid and other flexibility service buyers (such as Distributed Network Operators) so as to ensure platform assets are registered for such services. Alongside the Head of Smart Grid, the role also follows regulatory developments that impact upon the ESG offering, and naturally oversees the end to end onboarding of customers, as well as the account management thereafter.
Ecotricity Smart Grid Limited
Smart Grid is the Ecotricity corporate entity which has developed the control & optimisation platform Ecolibrium which, along with the hardware/software of Ecolink, monitors and controls assets of both Ecotricity and third parties remotely.
The Smart Grid team is responsible for the platform and models which constitute the Ecotricity Virtual Power Plant, known as Ecolibrium, as well as procuring flexibility assets as clients for the VPP.
This will include ‘non-owned’ assets such as Power Purchase Agreementss and contractual relationships with 3rd parties for embedded generation response, or load flexibility. Ecotricity Smart Grid works in close conjunction with Ecotricity Limited Trading team, arbitraging price spreads / load shifting, as well as developing revenues from the ancillary services market.
There is a necessarily close relationship with the Development team in order to progress, developable, commercially viable projects through to deployment to fit in with VPP needs. Similarly there is a relationship with the business parts of sales, as we look for flexibility opportunities via the B2B ‘Made to Measure’ offering into the VPP given the right incentives and products.
Core Responsibilities
- Identifying and contracting new assets for the VPP
- Research and assess the viability of emerging flexible technologies of interest to the VPP, including commercial modelling
- Overseeing account management
- Overseeing the integration and onboarding of assets, making the process as efficient and seamless as possible
- Work closely with key internal stakeholders from the planning, construction and operations teams
- Manage relationships / communications with key external technical stakeholders, in particular National Grid ESO, DNOs and Elexon
- Manage team members (currently Growth Officer and asset integration engineer)
- Ensure all necessary qualification work is complete for qualification for ancillary services (AS)
- Assess new Grid services
- Ensure Ecotricity asset development is aligned with AS needs (size, location, design)
- Assist General Manager in following policy and regulatory developments that impact upon aggregation proposition, and keep up to date with current legislation, policy development and other issues relevant to the position within the company and renewable energy industry, including necessary consultation responses that affect ESG activities
- Responsible with General Manager for marketing Ecolibrium and overseeing content on the ESG website/portal
- This will include identifying suitable conferences/trade shows and deciding on stand presence, as well as contributing articles where possible (to trade press or website) and originating speaking opportunities for PR purposes
Additional Responsibilities
- Contribute to strategy development
- Ensure necessary POs are raised and track the annual budget for the department, providing a monthly summary of spend