Santa Barbara Program Manager

~ The Clean Coalition is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to accelerate the transition to renewable energy and a modern grid through technical, policy, and project development expertise. ~

The Clean Coalition drives policy and program innovation to remove barriers to procurement and interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER) — such as local renewables, energy storage, demand response, advanced inverters — and works to establish market mechanisms that realize the full potential of integrating these solutions. The Clean Coalition collaborates with utilities (and other Load Serving Entities) and municipalities (and other jurisdictions) to create near-term deployment opportunities that prove the technical and economic viability of local renewables and other DER.

Position Overview

The Clean Coalition seeks a full-time Program Manager based in the Santa Barbara, California area to advance the Clean Coalition’s Montecito Community Microgrid Initiative and related projects. This role requires an engineering background and project scoping, development, and management experience. This role reports to a Program Director. Much of the Program Manager’s work can be done from a home office located in Santa Barbara or Goleta. There will be regular requirements for in-person participation in meetings and events. The start date for this position is as soon as possible.

Responsibilities

The Program Manager will manage key technical aspects of Community Microgrid and Solar Emergency Microgrid (SEM) projects in collaboration with strategic partners, including government entities, utilities, and technology vendors. Key responsibilities include:

• Scoping, developing, and managing technical projects
• Creating technical specifications and designs
• Cultivating and managing clients
• Producing proposals
• Writing reports

Qualifications

Requirements:

• Electrical or mechanical engineering degree
• Project scoping, project development, and project management experience
• Excellent writing and communication skills, including public speaking and graphics creation skills
• Ability to communicate complex ideas and findings to non-technical audiences
• Ability to work well independently as well as collaboratively with a high-energy geographically distributed team
• Proficiency with Microsoft Office, PowerPoint, Google Drive, Gmail

Preferred Experience:

• Familiarity with the distribution grid, its components, and the interactions of those components
• Familiarity with Google Earth, Excel, and Salesforce

Additional Information

The Clean Coalition’s Community Microgrid approach:

A Community Microgrid is a coordinated local grid area served by one or more distribution substations and supported by high penetrations of local renewables and other DER such as energy storage and demand response. Community Microgrids represent a new approach for designing and operating the electric grid, relying heavily on DER to achieve a more sustainable, secure, and cost-effective energy system while generally providing renewables-driven power backup for prioritized loads over indefinite durations. The substation-level foundation of a Community Microgrid ensures that the approach can be readily extended throughout a utility’s service territory and replicated across utilities. Solar Emergency Microgrids (SEMs) are simple proxies for Community Microgrids as they are sited behind customer meters, serving a single customer. SEMs are designed to provide indefinite backup power for critical loads at priority facilities, such as at police and fire stations, emergency operations centers and shelters, hospitals, and critical communications and water infrastructure.

The Montecito Community Microgrid Initiative:

A key area of responsibility for the Santa Barbara Program Manager will be to execute critical tasks associated with the Montecito Community Microgrid (MCM) Initiative.

Launched in response to the devastating Thomas Fire and subsequent debris flow, the MCM Initiative goal is to stage, plan, and help to deploy Community Microgrids in Montecito to ensure indefinite renewables-driven energy resilience for critical facilities, including the Montecito Fire Protection District headquarters; the Montecito Water District headquarters, wells, and pumping stations; as well as local life-sustaining emergency shelter and supply facilities. Along with providing resilience during future disasters, this deployment of clean local energy will showcase the grid of the future and will provide economic, environmental, and resilience benefits.

For more details on the MCM Initiative and a short video explaining the Community Microgrid approach, please click here.

To Apply

By email, please send a cover letter, a brief sample of your technical writing, and your resume to Frank Wasco with the subject line “Santa Barbara Program Manager.” In the body of the email, please indicate how you became aware of this job posting.

~ The Clean Coalition provides equal employment opportunities to all employees and applicants for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability or genetics. In addition to federal law requirements, The Clean Coalition complies with applicable state and local laws governing nondiscrimination in employment in every location in which the company has facilities. This policy applies to all terms and conditions of employment, including recruiting, hiring, placement, promotion, termination, layoff, recall, transfer, leaves of absence, compensation, and training. ~