Manager, Vehicle Grid Integration

Requisition ID # 166711 

Job Category: Customer Support / Operations 

Job Level: Manager/Principal

Business Unit: Engineering, Planning & Strategy

Work Type: Hybrid

Job Location: Oakland; Alameda; Alta; American Canyon; Angels Camp; Antioch; Auberry; Auburn; Avenal; Avila Beach; Bakersfield; Balch Camp; Bay Point; Bear Valley; Belden; Bellota; Belmont; Benicia; Berkeley; Brentwood; Brisbane; Buellton; Burney; Buttonwillow; Calistoga; Campbell; Canyon Dam; Canyondam; Capitola; Caruthers; Chico; Clearlake; Clovis; Coalinga; Colusa; Concord; Concord; Corcoran; Cottonwood; Cupertino; Daly City; Danville; Davis; Dinuba; Downieville; Dublin; Emeryville; Eureka; Fairfield; Folsom; Fort Bragg; Fortuna; Fremont; French Camp; Fresno; Fresno; Fulton; Garberville; Geyserville; Gilroy; Goodyear; Grass Valley; Guerneville; Half Moon Bay; Hayward; Hinkley; Hollister; Holt; Houston; Huron; Jackson; Kerman; King City; Lakeport; Lemoore; Lincoln; Linden; Livermore; Lodi; Loomis; Los Banos; Lower Lake; Madera; Magalia; Manteca; Manton; Mariposa; Martell; Marysville; Maxwell; Menlo Park; Merced; Meridian; Millbrae; Milpitas; Modesto; Monterey; Montgomery Creek; Morgan Hill; Morro Bay; Moss Landing; Mountain View; Napa; Needles; Newark; Newman; Novato; Oakdale; Oakhurst; Oakley; Olema; Orinda; Orland; Oroville; Palo Alto; Palo Cedro; Paradise; Parkwood; Paso Robles; Petaluma; Pioneer; Pismo Beach; Pittsburg; Placerville; Pleasant Hill; Point Arena; Potter Valley; Quincy; Rancho Cordova; Red Bluff; Redding; Richmond; Ridgecrest; Rio Vista; Rocklin; Roseville; Round Mountain; Sacramento; Salida; Salinas; San Bruno; San Carlos; San Francisco; San Francisco; San Jose; San Luis Obispo; San Mateo; San Rafael; San Ramon; San Ramon; Sanger; Santa Cruz; Santa Maria; Santa Nella; Santa Rosa; Selma; Shaver Lake; Sonoma; Sonora; South San Francisco; Springville; Stockton; Storrie; Taft; Tracy; Turlock; Twain; Ukiah; Vacaville; Vallejo; Walnut Creek; Wasco; Washington; Watsonville; West Sacramento; Wheatland; Whitmore; Willits; Willow Creek; Willows; Windsor; Winters; Woodland; Yuba City

Department Overview

The Clean Energy Transportation (CET) group is focused on accelerating the adoption of clean vehicles in California. CET leads a ~$0.5B portfolio of transportation electrification (TE) programs to increase the adoption of clean vehicles in California as we work to address one of the largest contributors to climate change – and we need a motivated, organized strategic thinker to help us determine how to expand this portfolio. We serve PG&E’s customers by deploying electric vehicle programs to increase access to charging infrastructure and reduce total cost of electric vehicle ownership, educating our customers and pursuing innovative R&D on the future of transportation electrification, focused on vehicle-grid-integration (VGI).

We focus on safety and quality, invest in our team’s success, solve problems, and strive to be better, work as an integrated team, and build trusted relationships. We collaborate and are intellectually curious. We are looking to collaborate with passionate, thoughtful people who want to make a real impact. Come join our team and help drive the transition to clean energy transportation

Team Overview:

PG&E believes that if properly managed, EVs can provide a quadruple value stack of reliability, resiliency, affordability, and lower GHG emissions for the grid and for our customers. The Vehicle Grid Integration Pilots and Analysis team (VGI team) leads a portfolio of VGI pilots, EV rates, data analysis, and strategy development all in support of identifying solutions to effectively integrate EVs onto the grid and unlock the full potential of EVs. Working closely with the Grid Innovation team at PG&E and external stakeholders such as EV and EVSE Original Equipment Manufacturers, distributed energy resource aggregators, advocacy groups, and the California Public Utilities Commission, the team is focused on testing novel technologies and strategies to understand customer behavior and preferences and identify a path to scale VGI for PG&E’s grid. 

Our values are: we collaborate, we’re intellectually curious, and we fail fast in order to address the pressing problems our customers, our grid, and our world is facing.

Position Summary

We are looking to collaborate with passionate, thoughtful people who want to make a real impact. We need strategic thinkers who are ready to address complex problems with creative and novel ideas.

The CET team creates, tests, and advocates for evidence-based clean energy transportation solutions by spearheading pilot projects, policy frameworks, tailored customer offerings, and stakeholder engagement. Our team develops, iterates, and executes on PG&E’s strategy to connect 3 million electric vehicles (EV) to the grid by 2030 and enabling at least 550 MW of flexible load from VGI applications.

To do this, the team is focused on the following five pillars below:

• Build:  reimagining how we build the transmission and distribution grid to enable mass EV adoption,
• Deploy:  strategizing how we can enable and deploy VGI at scale,
• Invest: identifying how we ensure the state meets ambitious charging infrastructure targets and developing new programs to ensure we invest in all of our communities,
• Serve:  working to serve our EV customers in a way that inspires joy and builds trust; and,
• Create: creating a repeatable and scalable pathway to enable widespread electrification via partnerships and policy advocacy.

The Manager of the Vehicle Grid Integration (VGI) team is responsible for the Deploy pillar, which will outline how PG&E meets the goal of 550 MW of flexible load through rates, managed charging and enabling the bi-directional capability of vehicles. In addition to leading the VGI strategy, this role will also be responsible for executing PG&E’s VGI pilots and the execution of strategic initiatives to improve data quality and analytics. A successful candidate will have excellent written and oral communication skills, be a self-starter and quick learner and willing to consider industry trends, the regulatory and policy environment, financial impacts, and customer needs as they develop and execute on strategic initiatives for PG&E and our EV customers.

The Manager will work cross-functionally within PG&E and with regulators and utility industry peers to drive execution of first-of-their kind VGI and Vehicle-to-Anything (V2X) pilots, use lessons learned to develop a roadmap to harnessing VGI at scale, and assess and prioritize and propose future R&D, pilots, and scaled demonstrations. Scaling VGI is a priority for PG&E. The successful candidate in this role must be able to manage a team of high performers to drive progress against milestones, while simultaneously communicating successes, failures, risks, and opportunities to executives at the highest level with the company.

This position is hybrid, working from your remote office and your assigned work location based on business need. The assigned work location will be within the PG&E Service Territory and will be agreed upon by the successful candidate and hiring leader. Preferred work location is Oakland, CA.

PG&E is providing the salary range that the company in good faith believes it might pay for this position at the time of the job posting. This compensation range is specific to the locality of the job. The actual salary paid to an individual will be based on multiple factors, including, but not limited to, specific skills, education, licenses or certifications, experience, market value, geographic location, and internal equity. Although we estimate the successful candidate hired into this role will be placed between the entry point and the middle of the range, the decision will be made on a case-by-case basis related to these factors. This job is also eligible to participate in PG&E’s discretionary incentive compensation programs. 

A reasonable salary range is:

Bay Area Minimum: $136,000

Bay Area Maximum: $232,000

-Or-

California Minimum: $129,000

California Maximum: $220,000

Job Responsibilities

The Manager will report to the Director of Clean Energy Transportation.  The successful candidate will be a driven, collaborative, big-picture thinker to manage the VGI product family portfolio and market segment.

Responsibilities include:

• Team Leadership and Mentorship
• Lead a team of passionate, high performers, to tackle cutting edge challenges and unleash the full potential of EVs
• Provide vision and guidance to the team to create an exciting and productive environment to which employees want to join and contribute toward business targets
• Guide team member(s) in data gathering, compiling, and analysis
• Foster a collaborative and speak up culture that drives transparency
• Engage with team members to coach, mentor, develop, recognize and reward to drive performance and results
• Manage a complex budget, with funding from various internal and external sources

• Execute high visibility VGI pilots and demonstrations
• Lead a team of product and program managers to execute on VGI and V2X pilots ranging from dynamic electric vehicle rates with export compensation components to vehicle-to-home and vehicle-to-microgrid pilots
• Actively problem solve with your team, troubleshooting a variety of anticipated challenges that will arise as PG&E leads the way in testing novel technology, processes, and compensation mechanisms
• Ensure your team is managing against budget and schedule and report progress using lean reporting best practices to executive leadership
• Develop and maintain dashboards across multiple pilot projects and drive best practices across your team
• Create a culture that embraces failing fast and incorporating learnings into long-term technology roadmaps.

• Communication, Strategic Planning and Decision Making
• Identify and understand customer needs and barriers to VGI adoption, industry trends, business risks and opportunities to iterate on and advance CET’s True North strategic vision
• Develop and present executive and board level materials to gain buy-in from key decision makers
• Assimilates diverse information from multiple stakeholders, and synthesizes the information to design, prioritize, and pursue strategic alternatives
• Represent the company at industry forums and events to communicate our EV strategy and advocate for innovative solutions
• Coordinate with state and federal agencies to advocate for customer needs and PG&E strategic positions to be reflected in the allocation of state and federal funds
• Interact and partner with regulatory agencies, including CPUC, CEC, CARB and industry groups and key market players to influence key decision makers and policy direction

• Data and Analytical Strategy
• Improve PG&E’s EV related data and data management by developing and leading projects to gather discrete data, analyze and improve the quality of data, and improve storage and accessibility of existing and new data
• Lead your team to construct and maintain strategic analytic models and tools to forecast and measure VGI adoption, rates and managed charging impacts on customer costs and the grid, and other relevant industry data to support VGI program and strategy development
• Conduct and use research and data (potentially including targeted customer research) to shape products, direction, advocacy, or program plans.

Knowledge, Skills and Abilities

• Undertake assignments of the highest complexity and impact to PG&E.
• Lead a team to solve unique and complex strategic issues and problems.
• Drive execution across a variety of high visibility projects
• Influence VGI strategy, policy, and internal and external processes
• Spearhead and/or consult on technical analysis of complex issues
• Develop and maintain new analytic methods, tools and processes to iterate on our True North Strategy
• Manage major cross-functional projects and initiatives.
• Coach, mentor, and train others.
• Represent PG&E in various forums
• Work with all levels of leadership (up to and including SVP and CEO) across functions to influence decisions.

• Anticipate issues and develop innovative solutions.
• Continually apply and guide others to apply understanding of company goals
• and strategies.
• Sponsor testimony and lead development of advice letters that include complex analysis and policy issues.

Qualifications

Minimum

• Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science in Business, Economics, Engineering, Marketing, Psychology, or related
• 6 years of relevant experience

Desired

• Advanced degree in engineering, policy, business, or similar
• Prior supervisory/managerial experience
• Understanding of the VGI market and policy landscape (state and federal)
• Understanding of utility/energy industry dynamics, trends, and issues, including rate and legislative/regulatory matters and business drivers
• Technical understanding of utility grid operations and energy markets, and/or EV and EV charging technology
• Extensive experience developing and presenting strategic topics to executive leadership