Power Systems Forecaster Specialist; Hybrid - Special

Job Description

The California Independent System Operator (ISO) manages the flow of electricity across the high-voltage, long-distance power lines that make up 80 percent of California's power grid. We safeguard the economy and well-being of 30 million Californians by operating the grid reliably 24/7.

As the impartial grid operator, the California ISO opens access to the wholesale power market that is designed to diversify resources and lower prices. It also grants equal access to 25,865 circuit-miles of power lines and reduces barriers to diverse resources competing to bring power to customers.

The California ISO's function is often compared to that of air traffic controllers. It would be grossly unfair for air traffic controllers to represent one airline and profit from allowing that company's planes to go through before others. In the same way, the California ISO operates independently—managing the electron traffic on a power grid we do not own—making sure electricity is safely delivered to utilities and consumers on time and reliably.

The California ISO is committed to the health, safety, and work/life integration of its employees, and is proud to offer flexible work arrangements. This position would be eligible to participate in a hybrid work capacity.

Relocation assistance is available.

• Uses statistical methods to collect and organize load, weather, and renewable resource data. Gathers and interprets various meteorological data to formulate short and medium-range forecasts critical to the Bulk Electric System for the ISO and EIM entities. Validates and improves the accuracy of daily load (including weather inputs affecting load), wind, solar, distributed resources, and uncertainty requirement forecasts. Provides meteorological insight and forecasting support to CAISO and WEIM BAA Operators and other internal groups as necessary.
  
  Identifies and alerts Operations division to meteorological events capable of jeopardizing system reliability.
• Monitors, analyzes, and reports on forecasting results, including performance, quality, efficiency, and effectiveness. Monitors and detects emerging forecasting trends. Participates in identifying root causes of forecast design gaps leading to inefficiency. Provides technical, analytical, and reporting services to internal business units and external entities. Works to improve streamlining and automating the forecasting monitoring and reporting processes.
• Improves methods and procedures for collecting and processing demand, energy, weather, and economic data by analyzing historical and forecasted electric demand, generation, and energy trends and related data. Creates, maintains, and analyzes databases housing historic real-time, hourly, and daily loads, weather, renewable resources, renewable generator outages, economic, demographic, and other pertinent data. Evaluates potential inefficiencies in current procedures and recommends improvements.
• Partners with senior staff to develop hypotheses to improve forecasting accuracy for load, renewables, and uncertainty products. Uses software to retrain the neural network model and/or other modeling methods to prove or disprove forecast hypotheses and analyzes the results. In conjunction with peers, researches, develops, and creates plans to enhance short term load forecast, wind forecast, solar forecast, uncertainty requirements, and other energy models through the use of statistical, algorithmic, mining and visualization techniques.
  
  Develops and works with senior staff to implement new forecasting tools and interfaces using computer programming.
• Provides technical analysis and coordination on all aspects of onboarding and validating variable energy resources to ensure timely, accurate and consistent detailed short-term wind and solar forecasts are used in the real‑time and day‑ahead markets. Provides technical analysis and coordination on all aspects of uncertainty requirements to ensure timely, accurate, and consistent requirements are available to operations and used in the real‑time and day‑ahead markets.
• Assists with policy issues and related matters. May propose solutions to issues and…