Director of Energy

Airgas•Houston, TX

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Director of Energy provides overall energy management direction and support for the Airgas Merchant Gases (AMG) business at both the strategic and tactical level. Accountable for the execution & delivery of the Energy Sourcing and related decarbonization strategy, managing energy risk and performance, managing energy contracts and all energy transactions and cost optimization opportunities.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business Finance, or Business Administration, or equivalent experience
10+ years of related work experience.
Deep understanding of Electricity Markets in North America including both regulated and deregulated markets.
Deep understanding of the Industrial Gas business and the impact of electricity costs, volatility and stability on the gas and liquid supply chain.
Analytical and conceptual ability necessary to assimilate internal and external requirements in the context of market and regulatory requirements and take action to create value for Airgas.
Ability to influence executive management and external parties through effective communication.
Working knowledge of commercial agreements and customer relations.
Excellent communication and team leadership skills.
Excellent understanding of accounting principles and working knowledge of plant operating budget.
Ability to collect and analyze data to form and support action plans.
Ability to understand principles of regulatory cost causation, the purpose of rate classes in regulatory proceedings, allocation of cost to rate classes, and rate design principles.
Ability to blend common sense with technical information / theories to produce sound achievable outcomes.
Ability to grasp ideas quickly and take advantage of group dynamics to lead others to improvements in approaches to resolve broad regulatory and structural energy issues.

Responsibilities

Developing the AMG Energy Strategy with the overall objective to minimize cost while balancing and managing risk. Key elements of the strategy include: Electricity procurement in regulated and deregulated markets, Carbon reduction roadmap leveraging no/low carbon energy sources including Renewables, Nuclear, and related environmental market products. and risk management including the use of energy derivatives.
Implement maximum potential participation in load control and other “demand response” opportunities.
Make decisions based on a Cross Business Line approach to optimize the energy needs considering a “big picture” Air Liquide perspective.
Create and maintain plant energy cost models that reflect energy, capacity, transmission, ancillary, margin and other cost incurred to serve Airgas facilities.
Follow on weekly basis the evolution of local energy markets and regulations, and systematically close the loop with Business stakeholders including Business Development, Sales, Product Management, Supply Chain and Plant Operations.
Ensuring continuity of supply and access to competitive commodity sources, and fulfilling AMG’s energy transition ambitions through securing renewable energy sources.
Ensure risk monitoring and risk management processes are activated and updated for all transactions.
Monitor individual plant operations and poses understanding of operational characteristics and energy consumption patterns to establish and track energy use efficiency targets, performance targets for energy reduction to offset capacity, transmission and other fixed cost energy charges based on time sensitive use.
Maintain and improve systems to develop and track energy cost information and facilitate reporting to operations, finance and management.
Negotiate competitive favorable terms to energy purchase contracts.
For regulated markets, develop an analysis of utility cost allocation and rate design to enable effective participation in both group and individual efforts to achieve fair rate design for Airgas facilities.
Understands, monitors issues that impact Airgas cost at the ISO level and alternative approaches to mitigate cost increase for Airgas and others.
Close-the-loop with relevant stakeholders and ensure a regular integration of lessons learnt / best practices in the Energy Management Workflows.
Create an effective cooperative relationship with local operating personnel and ensure local teams have a working knowledge of key elements of the energy contracts so that quick and efficient actions can be taken to manage load, respond to Demand Response and Curtailment requirements, etc.
Socialize and gain validation for strategy and major decisions from key stakeholders including Airgas and Air Liquide Senior Management as well as relevant internal review boards.