San Francisco, California,
Utility Specialist (5602) - Power Enterprise - SFPUC
Exam Type: Class Based Test
Eligible List Type: Combined Promotive and Entrance
Certification Rule: Rule of 10
Fill Type: Permanent Civil Service
Work Hours: Regular
Job Code and Title: 5602-Utility Specialist
Application Opening: July 25, 2022
Annual Salary: $113,282 - $167,466
This is a Position-Based Test Conducted in accordance with CSC Rule 111A.
HOW TO APPLY
Applications for City and County of San Francisco jobs are only accepted through an online process. Visit https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1/ and begin the application process.
WHO ARE WE?
San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC)
Headquartered in San Francisco, we have 2,300 employees operating across eight counties serving more than 2.7 million customers in the San Francisco Bay Area – 24 hours per day, 365 days per year.
Our Mission: To provide our customers with high quality, efficient, and reliable water, power, and wastewater services in a manner that values environmental and community interests and sustains the resources entrusted to our care.
Our Vision: We are an innovative utility leader, recognized for excellent results in service, safety, stewardship, and inclusiveness.
We are an award-winning and industry-leading utilities organization committed to our customers, community interests, and the environment. To learn more about our organization, please visit our website at https://www.sfpuc.org/ .
We are proud of our infrastructure and programs, but most importantly, we value our highly qualified and dedicated workforce which ensures that this vision becomes a reality.
To learn more about working at the SFPUC, visit our career site at https://www.sfpuc.org/about-us/careers-sfpuc
Power Enterprise
The Power Enterprise, within the SFPUC, has two separate power programs, Hetch Hetchy Power, San Francisco’s Publicly Owned Utility serving 150 MW of retail load, and CleanPowerSF, San Francisco’s Community Choice Aggregation program, serving 500+ MW of retail load. Power Enterprise serves this load with a combination of owned and purchased resources. SFPUC owns and operates the Hetch Hetchy Water and Power Project, which includes hydro-electric power generation in Moccasin, California; solar arrays throughout San Francisco; and biogas cogeneration facilities, which together produce cost-effective energy with a zero greenhouse gas (GHG-free) emission profiles. Both of Power’s programs supply portfolios exceed State minimum renewable content. Power Enterprise provides its retail customers with distributed energy resource programs. In addition to these retail electricity service offerings, Power Enterprise is responsible for San Francisco street and pedestrian lighting.
This recruitment is for multiple positions within the Power Enterprise of the SFPUC.
The SFPUC is currently hiring for the permanent civil service (PCS) positions below:
Job Description
Customer Programs Specialist
Under direction of the Customer Programs Manager, this position will support the City's efforts to provide electric utility customer programs that incentivize energy efficiency, distributed energy resources, and GHG reductions. The Customer Programs group is responsible for the design and implementation of customer programs serving both Hetch Hetchy and CleanPowerSF electric customers. This position will lead specific customer programs through needs and feasibility analyses, design, implementation, and evaluation. This position should possess an understanding of, and familiarity with, current utility, energy industry, and sustainability/climate policies and issues.
Energy Efficiency/Renewables Project Management Specialist
This position will plan, develop, and manage municipal renewable projects (e.g., solar, wind, ocean) as well as energy efficiency projects; conducts a wide variety of research, analyses, and studies of technologies and potential projects; and assesses the energy potential or savings associated with renewable or energy efficiency technologies as well as their technical and financial viability.
Energy Scheduling and Settlements
This position will perform a wide variety of duties related to energy trading, energy scheduling, and a complex procurement planning analysis. This position should be able to utilize scheduling software tools to submit day-ahead and real-time schedules, execute energy trades to maximize revenue and minimize costs, as well as perform complex modeling and analysis to develop short and long-term procurement plans.
Federal Agreements and Grid Acquisition Project Analyst
Under general direction, this position provides analytical and policy support for issues pertaining to the City’s Federally regulated agreements for electric distribution and transmission services, and provides analytical support for litigation, negotiations and administration of these agreements and tariffs. This includes evaluating the risks and impacts of filings, proposals and disputes, as well as, providing support for the City’s on-going efforts to build out electric distribution and transmission assets, provide service to new customers and acquire the electric distribution grid in San Francisco.
Origination and Power Specialist
Under general administrative direction of the Origination and Power Supply Manager, this position will develop and negotiate long-term Power Purchase Agreements with energy suppliers; work collaboratively with Hetch Hetchy Power and CleanPowerSF program staff to analyze supply needs and strategies; assist with Integrated Resource Planning, executing short-term energy contracts, professional services and other contracting needs.
Redevelopment Specialist
Under direction of the Power Enterprise's Redevelopment Manager, this position is responsible for reviewing development plans; preparing technical and financial assessments and reports in evaluating the feasibility of the City to be the exclusive service provider of electricity and/or natural gas for development projects and new service territories within the City; working with project staff, staff from various City Departments, and developers and planners to support new electric infrastructure in redevelopment areas; and responding to requests for information (RFls) on the energy utility systems. The position also provides as-needed technical support and utility expertise in support of the SFPUC Power Enterprise's work with other SFPUC Enterprises and City Departments.
Regulatory and Legislative Specialist
Under direction of the Regulatory and Legislative Affairs Manager, this position 1) participates in advocacy on current energy regulatory and legislative matters that affect the Power Enterprise and San Francisco; 2) evaluates the impacts of existing and proposed regulations and legislation on the Power Enterprise and on the City using analytical and policy tools; and 3) contributes to strategic initiatives that support the Power Enterprise and City-wide energy initiatives.
Retail Services
Under general administrative direction of the Retail Services Manager, this position will support the SFPUC’s role as the City’s Meter Data Management Agent through the maintenance, management and processing of meter and service data for billing and reporting; support, prepare and/or submit a wide variety of reports to state and federal agencies; provide analytical support for various internal Power teams on meter, load, generation, and billing data; maintain documentation of various business processes and work on streamlining new and existing processes; work with large datasets and reporting tools to create new reports and efficiencies in data extraction from various systems; and provide operational support for various customer programs and engagement efforts.
Risk Management and Business Analyst
Under direction of the Risk Management and Business Analysis Manager, this position provides support in risk management, financial and business analysis, long term planning, and other analytical and policy support on matters that affect San Francisco's energy interests, in particular the operations and business opportunities of the CleanPowerSF program and the Hetch Hetchy Power program of the SFPUC. Responsibilities include developing analytical tools to support deal making and contract evaluation; assessing the economics and risks in providing power supply, transmission and distribution services; assisting in developing rates for these services; providing cost-benefit analyses for new load serving opportunities; and developing and supporting energy trading risk policies.
Note: The candidate pool resulting from this recruitment may also be used to fill non-permanent, Temporary Exempt (TEX) and Permanent Exempt (PEX) positions. These positions are excluded from the competitive Civil Service examination. The duration of the appointment shall not exceed 36 months or less, depending on the type of appointment/category.
The SFPUC is currently hiring for the exempt positions below:
CleanPowerSF Customer Solutions (CAT 18)
Under direction of the CleanPowerSF Customer Solutions Manager, this position is responsible for supporting the delivery of high-quality services and programs to CleanPowerSF customers. The Customer Solutions team is responsible for overseeing third party services for customer data management, billing and customer care and for the planning and development of new customer programs and projects to achieve CleanPowerSF's local clean energy development goals. This position will support the Customer Solutions team in its development of energy efficiency, demand response, and local clean energy programs and projects.
Essential Duties for all Listed Positions (will include some or all of the following):
Monitors operations to ensure compliance with policy directives, laws, regulations and contractual constraints
Develops analytical and predictive models; conducts technical and economic feasibility evaluations of proposed capital projects; incorporates results of analyses into cost/benefit assessments; conducts a wide variety of analytical studies related to assessment of operational effectiveness, financial and market risk, price sensitivity, and other complex studies as assigned.
Develops and implements seasonal, monthly and multi-year operating, financial and capital plans.
Directly negotiates large seasonal and yearly contracts, rates and service terms; provides negotiation support on division-wide multi-year contracts; establishes rate policies and negotiating parameters for short-term purchase and sale transactions and agreements.
Identifies operational constraints and develops, evaluates, or recommends policies and procedures to improve operations, mitigate risks, increase revenues and decrease costs.
Supervises the preparation of section operating and capital budgets, including revenue and expense forecasts and analyses and reporting of variances.
Writes a variety of documents including reports; work plans; operating, financial and marketing plans; documentation of forecast methodologies and model assumptions; legal and regulatory interpretations and issues; and other types of written documents as needed to support the diverse work activities assigned to this class.
Develops, implements, and maintains database systems for hydrologic, water supply, power operations, marketing, energy consumption and other data.
Independently performs research, evaluation and analysis of regulations, legislation, regulatory filings, contracts and proposals in order to prepare well-reasoned recommendations for decision makers. May serve as Subject Matter Expert in support of regulatory proceedings or litigation.
Supervises Utility Analysts and other technical personnel and provides technical support and expertise for assigned specialty area.
The 5602 will perform other tasks as assigned.
Qualifications
MINIMUM QUALIFICATIONS
Education: Possession of a baccalaureate degree from an accredited college or university preferably with major coursework in Law, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources, Computer Science, Business Administration, Mathematics, Statistics, Economics or other field related to the utility business; AND
Experience:
Four years of verifiable journey-level work experience in one or more of the following areas: planning, scheduling, cost estimating and resource projecting for mid to large scale projects; water supply/infrastructure management and planning; power operations planning and scheduling; analysis, interpretation and application of utility contracts and regulations in either water, power (electric and/or natural gas), telecommunications, or a wastewater/clean water program; utility market and environmental analysis and planning; power supply and transmission rates and contracts; generation, transmission or distribution planning and design; or long-term utility systems planning.
SUBSTITUTION: Additional qualifying experience may be substituted for the degree requirement on a year-for-year basis.
Desirable Qualifications
All Positions
Experience working with a large diverse workforce of people with different cultures, backgrounds, and opinions.
Experience conducting complex data analyses
Excellent written and oral communications skills
Special Conditions
Some positions may require additional qualifications such as special conditions that may differ from the standard minimum qualifications associated with this classification.
License and Certification
Specified positions may require possession of a valid California Class C driver's license.
Notes:
One year of full-time employment is equivalent to 2,000 hours (2,000 hours of qualifying work experience is based on a 40-hour work week). Any overtime hours that you work above forty (40) hours per week are not included in the calculation to determine full-time employment.
Applicants must meet the minimum qualification requirement by the final filing date unless otherwise noted.
Verification:
Applicants may be required to submit verification of qualifying education and experience at any point during the recruitment and selection process.
Note: Falsifying one’s education, training, or work experience or attempted deception on the application may result in disqualification for this and future job opportunities with the City and County of San Francisco.
If education verification is required, information on how to verify education requirements, including verifying foreign education credits or degree equivalency, can be found at http://sfdhr.org/index.aspx?page=456 .
Verification of required work experience typically must be on the employer’s letterhead, and must include the applicant’s name, job title, description of job duties, dates of employment, hours per week, and signature of the employer, supervisor, or appropriate representative.
Employees of the City and County of San Francisco may submit performance evaluations showing duties performed to verify qualifying City experience. City employees will receive credit for the duties of the class to which appointed. Credit for experience obtained outside of the employee's class will be allowed only if recorded in accordance with the provisions of Civil Service Commission Rules. CCSF employees will not receive credit for experience obtained outside of their classification unless recorded in accordance with the provisions of the Civil Service Rule 110.9.1/111A.11.2.
Experience claimed in self-employment will only be accepted if supported by documents verifying income, earnings, business license and experience comparable to minimum qualifications above. Copies of income tax papers or other documents listing occupation and total earnings must be submitted.
Verification of required valid licensure/certification typically must be a photocopy of the license/certificate including the name of the issuing agency as well as the name of the license/certificate holder, license/certificate number, and expiration date.
SELECTION PROCEDURES
Only candidates who demonstrate via the application that they meet the minimum qualifications will advance in the selection process.
Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire (Weight: Qualifying):
Candidates will be prompted to complete a Supplemental Questionnaire as part of the online employment application at a later time. This Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire is designed to obtain specific information regarding an applicant's experience in relation to the Minimum Qualifications for this position. Applicants must also complete the official application. It is essential that applicants provide complete information in identifying their education, experience and training. The Minimum Qualification Supplemental Questionnaire will be used to evaluate if the applicant possesses the required minimum qualifications.
Supplemental Questionnaire (100%)
Qualified candidates will be required to complete a Supplemental Questionnaire Examination as part of the selection procedures. The Supplemental Questionnaire Examination is designed to measure the knowledge, skills and abilities required for the Utility Specialist position and include, but not limited to:
Ability to independently conduct complex data analyses and develop and employ complex analytical models
Knowledge of basic concepts and terminology related to electric utility operations and analyses
Ability to use independent judgment within established policies
Ability to establish and maintain effective working relationships with those contacted in the course of the work
All relevant experience, education and/or training must be on the supplemental questionnaire in order to be reviewed in the rating process. The information provided on the Supplemental Questionnaire Examination must be consistent with the information on the application and is subject to verification. Once submitted, applicant responses on the Supplemental Questionnaire Examination cannot be changed. Only those applicants who qualify will receive a score on the Supplemental Questionnaire Evaluation.
Candidates will be placed on the eligible list in rank order according to their final score. Candidate scores on this examination may also be applied to other announcements involving other job titles, when directed by the Human Resources Director.
Note: A passing score must be achieved on the Supplemental Questionnaire Exam in order to continue in the selection process and be placed on the Eligible List Score Report. The department may administer additional position-specific selection procedures to make final hiring decisions.
Additional Information
Certification Rule:
The certification rule for the ranked eligible lists resulting from this examination will be Rule of 10 Scores. The department may administer additional position-specific selection procedures to make final hiring decisions.
Eligible List/Score Report:
A confidential eligible list of applicant names that have passed the civil service examination process will be created and used for certification purposes only. An examination score report will be established, so applicants can view the ranks, final scores and number of eligible candidates. Applicant information, including names of applicants on the eligible list, shall not be made public unless required by law. However, an eligible list shall be made available for public inspection, upon request, once the eligible list is exhausted or expired and referrals resolved. The eligible list/score report resulting from this civil service examination process is subject to change after adoption (e.g., as a result of appeals), as directed by the Human Resources Director or the Civil Service Commission.
The duration of the eligible list resulting from this examination process will be 12 months, and may be extended with the approval of the Human Resources Director.
Upon approval of the Human Resource Director (see Civil Service Rule 111A.26.5), the eligible list/score report resulting from this announcement may be used by other departments that also use this classification or a similar classification. To find other Departments which use this classification, please see https://sfdhr.org/sites/default/files/documents/Forms-Documents/Position-Count-by-Job-Codes.pdf
Terms of Announcement and Appeal Rights:
Applicants must be guided solely by the provisions of this announcement, including requirements, time periods and other particulars, except when superseded by federal, state or local laws, rules or regulations. [Note: The correction of clerical errors in an announcement may be posted on the Department of Human Resources website at https://careers.smartrecruiters.com/CityAndCountyOfSanFrancisco1 /.]
The terms of this announcement may be appealed under Civil Service Rule 111A.35.1. The standard for the review of such appeals is ‘abuse of discretion’ or ‘no rational basis’ for establishing the position description, the minimum qualifications and/or the certification rule.
Appeals must include a written statement of the item(s) being contested and the specific reason(s) why the cited item(s) constitute(s) abuse of discretion by the Human Resources Director. Appeals must be submitted directly to the Executive Officer of the Civil Service Commission within five business days of the announcement issuance date.
All your information will be kept confidential according to EEO guidelines.
Exam Analyst Information: If you have any questions regarding this recruitment or application process, please contact the exam analyst, Monica Guzman, by email at mguzman@sfwater.org .
PUC | MG| PBT-5602-124068
The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.
CONDITION OF EMPLOYMENT: All City and County of San Francisco employees are required to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of employment. Someone is fully vaccinated when 14 days have passed since they received the final dose of a two-shot vaccine or a dose of a one-shot vaccine. Any new hire must present proof of full vaccination status to be appointed. Any new hire who will be routinely assigned or occasionally enter High-Risk Settings, must provide proof of having received a COVID-19 booster vaccine by March 1, 2022, or once eligible.
The City and County of San Francisco encourages women, minorities and persons with disabilities to apply. Applicants will be considered regardless of their sex, race, age, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical disability, mental disability, medical condition (associated with cancer, a history of cancer, or genetic characteristics), HIV/AIDS status, genetic information, marital status, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, military and veteran status, or other protected category under the law.