Engineer, Planning & Evaluation

Energy Trust of Oregon•Portland, OR

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

Energy Trust of Oregon is an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to energy efficiency and renewable energy development, serving customers of Portland General Electric, Pacific Power, NW Natural, Cascade Natural Gas, and Avista in Oregon, and NW Natural in SW Washington. The organization is recognized as one of the 100 Best Nonprofits to Work For in Oregon and is committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. The Engineer, Planning & Evaluation works as part of the Planning and Evaluation group. This role is responsible for developing, reviewing, and approving energy efficiency measures, including new offerings and measures proposed by Program Delivery Contractors (PDC’s) and Program Management Contractors (PMC’s). The Engineer assists the Lead Engineer and Measure Development Manager in prioritizing the development, review, approval, and documentation of prescriptive and semi-prescriptive efficiency measures. Key responsibilities include delivering training and coaching, and continuously improving the measure development process and associated tools, templates, and documents. The Engineer ensures that all approved offerings are technically sound and cost-effective or attain exception approval, and are consistent with Energy Trust requirements. The position also involves engaging with program, PMC, and PDC staff to develop and oversee pilots and other research to inform measure development, and contributing to technical field trials and other research commissioned by Energy Trust and/or regional and national groups to verify measure savings or other characteristics.

Requirements

Bachelor’s degree in electrical or mechanical engineering, physics, or other relevant quantitative degree, or equivalent experience, is required.
2 years of experience in an engineering role in the implementation or evaluation of energy efficiency programs.
Knowledge of applying business and economic analysis techniques including life cycle cost analysis, net present value, internal rate of return, and other quantitative economic criteria, ideally for consideration of investments in energy efficiency and renewable resources.
Technical knowledge of energy-using processes, such as lighting, HVAC, industrial systems, heat recovery, industrial equipment or building science.
Experience applying engineering concepts pragmatically to help assess typical costs and savings for efficiency measures.
Proficiency with Excel; ability to review and troubleshoot complex spreadsheet analyses.
Demonstrated ability to work at the detailed analytical level and at strategic levels.
Excellent organizational awareness and effectiveness, with demonstrated ability to collaborate effectively with technical and management level individuals with many different roles, cultures, and experience levels.
Willingness and skills to do a combination of communications and coordination, negotiation, documentation, and detailed technical work.
Excellent verbal and written communication skills. In particular, ability to analyze complex technical issues and succinctly convey conclusions, inferences, and applications in general terms for diverse technical and public audiences.
Must be able to interact with a diverse workforce and be comfortable working in culturally diverse settings and groups.
Ability to work independently with minimal supervision.

Nice To Haves

Experience with utility regulation and efficiency programs is preferred.
Experience interpreting the effects of codes and standards changes on energy efficiency measures and programs preferred.

Responsibilities

Develops cost-benefit analyses of energy saving measures, and documents information sources, analysis, and findings.
Reviews measure development work scopes, drafts measure approval documents and associated cost-benefit analyses drafted by contractors, provides feedback and suggestions for improvement, and decides when measures analyses are acceptable to be published.
Works with the Measure Development Manager to consider program design impacts and/or changes while scoping analyses.
Identifies which key assumptions included in measure analyses need to be verified through evaluations or other market research; coordinates and communicates with Energy Trust staff, PMCs, and regional organizations to obtain information needed to verify assumptions.
Acquires information on changes in federal and state codes and standards, anticipates effects on baseline efficiencies, and incorporates into estimates of cost, savings and cost-effectiveness for efficiency measures.
Provides this information to Planning for incorporation into Energy Trust’s Resource Assessment and to programs to inform goals.
Participates in outside committees, working groups, projects and pilots through organizations such as the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (NEEA), Regional Technical Forum (RTF), and Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE), to assist in their efforts and also to help identify products, services or data sources to inform new measures and measure updates.
As a subject matter expert, contributes to maintenance and continuous improvement of the measure development process, training and mentoring both internal staff and contractors on associated tools and templates.
Prepares documents for the Public Utility Commission or other public and regulatory groups.
Researches and helps define and design pilot projects and evaluations for emerging technologies and approaches.
Maintains and enhances project and measure archives to support measure analysis and cost-effectiveness decision making.
Makes public presentations and facilitates discussions with regional and national energy efficiency organizations and forums.
Serves as a resource for ad hoc requests for information and engineering support.
Perform other job-related duties as assigned.
Perform all functions of the job in a safe manner.

Benefits

Health/dental/vision insurance
Employer sponsored and paid life/disability
401(k) with a company contribution of 6% of your salary after 90 days of employment
TriMet pass
Access to health and dependent FSA/HSA accounts
Generous paid vacation, holidays and sick days
Paid volunteer hours
Employee assistance program
Career advancement opportunities
Great colleagues and culture
Flexibility to work from home and/or an office space at the Portland, OR location
Work from home laptop provided