Managing Consultant - Power Market Modeling & Analysis

Wood Mackenzie • Houston, TX

7d

About The Position

As a Managing Consultant on the Power Market Modelling and Analysis team within the Americas Power & Renewables Consulting team, you will play a key role in our growing consulting practice leading the management and delivery of a wide range of commercial, transaction and strategic consulting projects. You will be a front-line leader involved in all aspects of the consulting process, from shaping the opportunity, performing the analysis, managing the project, and working closely with clients and Wood Mackenzie experts to develop insights to support critical client commercial and strategic decisions. The Managing Consultant will be instrumental in developing the power market analytics for the North American power markets, running fundamental production cost models to generate regional, zonal and nodal power price forecasts, building scenario analysis, and supporting strategy, commercial advisory and portfolio/asset due diligence engagements. The role combines strong modelling execution with well-organized, fully documented deliverables and growing client responsibility. This role requires strong execution and workstream management to deliver client mandates, with active coaching of Consultants and Senior Consultants. The Managing Consultant is expected to work as part of a project team under the guidance of Principal Consultants and Directors and forms a critical part of the project delivery team at Wood Mackenzie while increasing visibility with clients. This role requires a high level of creative thinking, analytical and problem-solving abilities, and the application of detailed North American power market knowledge and experience to a broad range of consulting projects and client situations. These capabilities must be accompanied by a strong command of oral and written communication skills in both internal as well as external and client-facing environments. Additionally, outstanding team and project management capabilities, in a consulting context, are required for the purpose of this role.

Requirements

• Direct experience within the power & renewables industry or in a related consulting environment, with exposure to managing workstreams or parts of a bigger and more complex projects
• 5+ years of direct working experience at a power and/or renewables focused consulting firm, IPP, power utility, development company, infrastructure fund, bank, or other such analytical or consulting role in the power & renewables industry, including 3+ years of hands-on PCM experience
• Hands-on PCM experience with one or more of the following fundamental models: PLEXOS, AURORA, PROMOD, GridView, EnCompass or equivalent, including model setup, calibration, validation, scenario execution and interpretation of results
• Strong deliverable preparation skills such as creating, organizing and QA/QC of model results into clear dashboards tables, charts, PowerPoint presentations and reports that turn analysis into client-ready deliverables
• Exposure to North American regulated and deregulated power markets, market design, LMP formation, capacity and ancillary services market constructs, resource adequacy and transmission and core generation technologies (wind, solar, BESS, thermal)
• Analytical skills including but not limited to financial modelling and familiarity with power asset and/or market modelling (commercial)
• Undergraduate degree in engineering, mathematics, physics, economics, or finance.
• Proven experience of working in a team environment is essential
• Strong Microsoft Excel and PowerPoint skills
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills, with strong writing and presentation skills
• Personal time management skills, and workstream management and client service skills, including the ability to supervise junior team members and raise scope changes with the project lead

Nice To Haves

• Graduate degree, such as, MBA, MS or PhD is preferred
• Tool development (capacity, scarcity, battery and thermal dispatch), Python, SQL and AI tools (Claude, Copilot, Gemini) are an added advantage
• Exposure to nodal price forecasting, shift factors, congestion, basis risk, curtailment, negative prices and interconnection assessment is beneficial
• Exposure to transaction advisory, price forecasts, scenario and sensitivity analysis and asset due diligence for investors, lenders, developers and IPPs is beneficial
• Some experience in an energy or strategy consulting environment would be beneficial

Responsibilities

• Plan and manage project workstreams or parts of a bigger and more complex project against scope, timeline and budget, clarify priorities with the project team and keep all team members aligned
• Plan and prioritise own workload and that of team members to ensure project objectives and deadlines are met
• Track progress against the project plan and flag risks, delays and scope changes early to the project lead
• Keep clients and the project lead updated on progress, and act as day-to-day client contact on assigned workstreams
• Oversee and review the contribution of Consultants, Senior Consultants and researchers to ensure high-quality deliverables, completed on time and within budget
• Support project close-out (project review, participant feedback, final deliverable and audit file archiving)
• Identify follow-up opportunities and raise them with the senior project team members
• Support senior team members in business development across the North American power markets, including proposals, scopes, modelling approach, effort estimates and in preparing a pitch deck
• Build working-level relationships with client counterparts and support the pursuit of consulting opportunities
• Contribute to the development of North American power market modeling offerings and share best practices with the global sector teams
• Contribute to thought leadership through preparation of data, research, articles, webinars and conference presentations
• Building and maintaining the internal network (across consulting, research and sales and account management) to deliver the best possible outcome for both Wood Mackenzie and its clients
• Generating innovative ideas and approaches to industry issues, both within the assignments and to the consulting practice as a whole
• Working with colleagues in our other sector consulting teams to ensure good coordination across the value chain for our clients
• Develop subject matter expertise in production cost modeling, and in one or more of the following areas: thermal assets, wind energy, solar energy, energy storage, market structures and carbon regimes
• Build, run, calibrate and validate results from production cost model (PCM) such as PLEXOS, AURORA, PROMOD, GridView, EnCompass etc.
• Develop a process to organize, QA/QC and interpret model results into clear dashboards, tables, charts and summaries that support the client scope
• Support preparation of client deliverables such as PowerPoint presentations, reports and Excel outputs with a clear storyline and results
• Review the work of junior staff members for accuracy, consistency and quality, and coach them on modeling and deliverables
• Extract and analyse data from internal and external sources such as ISO/RTO databases, websites, industry interviews and Wood Mackenzie proprietary data and products
• Demonstrate high standards of professionalism and attention to detail to ensure the highest quality analysis is delivered
• Take accountability for the analysis undertaken, and explain it to clients and project leads in a coherent and credible manner
• Support long-term power price forecasts (energy, capacity, ancillary services) using capacity expansion and PCM simulations, and run scenario and sensitivity analyses summarizing the key value drivers
• Apply working knowledge of North American power markets (ISO/RTO market design, policy and regulation) for PCM model setup and interpretation of results
• Exposure to nodal price analysis, including shift factors, congestion, basis risk, curtailment and negative prices is an added advantage
• Experience building market structure based and asset dispatch tools using Python, SQL and AI tools
• Support buy-side and sell-side transaction advisory and asset due diligence such as merchant revenue forecasts, PPA and hedge analysis, and market studies for investors and lenders
• Exposure to interconnection, basis and congestion assessments, asset dispatch and pro forma preparation is an advantage.
• Effective and timely communication with clients
• Demonstrate effective written and verbal communication and presentation skills, both internally and externally
• Establish good working relationships with colleagues across the business
• Present clearly and concisely to clients and colleagues
• Proven effective cross team working skills, being able to work in an open and trusting way across the broader consulting, research and sales teams in Wood Mackenzie
• Adopt a flexible approach towards work
• Support consulting practice development by working with colleagues to understand what new offerings can be taken to clients
• Coach and mentor Consultants and Senior Consultants, providing timely, constructive feedback on modeling framework and deliverables

Benefits

• We are an equal opportunities employer. This means we are committed to recruiting the best people regardless of their race, colour, religion, age, sex (including pregnancy, sexual orientation, and gender identity), national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Mid Level