Associate or Sr. Associate, Development

ABOUT AVANTUS

Avantus is shaping the future by making reliable, low-cost clean energy a global reality. Our legacy of leadership in next generation solar energy includes developing one of the nation’s largest solar clusters and one of the first projects to beat fossil fuel prices back in 2016. Today, we are expanding the boundaries of existing technologies to build one of the largest portfolios of smart power plants with integrated storage, capable of providing millions of people with affordable, zero-emission energy – day and night. Through our relentless pursuit of better, we are decarbonizing our planet at the gigaton level, and bringing the advantages of clean energy to all of us.

ABOUT THE POSITION

We are seeking a highly motivated and organized candidate for an Associate or Sr. Associate, Development position for utility-scale solar development.

This position would support the Development department and will collaborate with an interdisciplinary team involved in all stages of project development, from conception through start of construction.  This position requires coordinating between 2-4 projects and their development activities using cloud-based project management, GIS, document management databases and reporting tools.   Projects may be located across multiple states and will generally have between a 36–48-month development cycle.

The successful candidate will demonstrate sound industry and project development knowledge, superior communication and negotiation skills, the ability to focus on minute details while still seeing the big picture, detailed organization, a desire to solve complex problems, initiative, results oriented and an excellent ability to work with others across multiple teams. 

ESSENTIAL FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES 

• Support creation of development strategy and execute on it to achieve project milestones on time and on budget in order for projects to successfully move into financing and construction.
• Coordinate project budgets, objectives, schedules, and deliverables for assigned development projects.
• Coordinate development activities including but not limited to site acquisition, title curative, interconnection, regulatory approvals, engineering, land use and environmental permitting, and financial valuation by working with internal teams, external consultants, and local stakeholders.
• Assist with financial models, internal tracking systems, reports, and PowerPoint presentations (internal and external audiences).
• Gather market intelligence.
• Support land use and environmental permitting applications as well as preliminary engineering.
• Coordinate the real estate title curative process including diligence, supporting negotiation, and closeout with support of internal real estate team and external consultants.
• Support the interconnection process including diligence, technical review, negotiation from application through signed agreement, with support of internal interconnection team.
• Coordinate preliminary project valuation modeling with the project finance team.
• Identify and report risks to project success and work with internal and external parties to establish mitigation plans to maintain project schedules and budgets.
• Arranging, organizing, regularly scheduled project meetings, communicating projects’ statuses, reviewing and updating the project schedule and cash forecast.
• Review and manage project contracts including leases, interconnection agreements, power purchase agreements to ensure compliance with their terms.
• Support the creation and improvement of development and project management tools, processes, best practices.
• Occasional travel to project sites.

REQUIRED SKILLS AND QUALIFICATIONS

• Four-year bachelor's degree in a relevant discipline.
• Utility, permitting, real estate, engineering, or project finance experience is a plus.
• 2+ years’ experience required in renewable energy development. 
• Strong market experience in WECC, CAISO, and/or the Southwestern US.
• Knowledge of utility-scale solar development and energy storage markets.
• Knowledge of interconnection, permitting, real estate, state/federal regulation, utility procurement goals, politics, law and other issues that impact development of renewable energy projects in energy markets.
• Solid understanding of economic drivers within our business.
• Ability to concisely frame issues for senior executives and other team members by providing context, analysis, recommendations, and risk/benefit tradeoffs, both in written and verbal format.
• Strong understanding of the relationships and dependencies between tasks in a project schedule to prioritize teams’ resource allocation.
• Highly resourceful and able to advance project development, while navigating through complex challenges and mitigating key risks.
• Highly proficient in MS Excel (advanced proficiency required), Project, Word, and PowerPoint, as well as Google Earth
• Independent self-starter who can meet deadlines and deliver quality products with minimal oversight.
• Substantial ability to recognize opportunities, identify and evaluate risks in a development context as well as effectively communicate the foregoing.
• Ability to manage a large workload, often providing support to processes managed by colleagues, while prioritizing tasks and effectively juggling competing deadlines.
• Detail-oriented with a strong sense of personal responsibility and ownership of work product.
• Excellent organizational and communications skills.

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