Control Room Operator

McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of America’s premier commercial construction companies. Our reputation for tackling the toughest building challenges starts with our focus on building high-performing teams that collaborate with clients and industry partners starting in the earliest stages of design, throughout construction and beyond project completion. With offices and employees nationwide, we specialize in a wide range of project types including healthcare, education, renewable energy, marine, water/wastewater, commercial office and retail, hospitality/entertainment and airports. Originally founded as a family business in 1864, today we are proud to be 100 percent employee-owned.

The Control Room Operator will be responsible for coordinating day-to-day operations activities for a diverse portfolio of solar facilities that are under the control of a variety of stakeholders, transmission providers, and scheduling entities. This position will report to the operations & maintenance (O&M) Manager and will interface with on-site maintenance staff, performance engineering, vendors, Subcontractors and Clients. The Control Room Operator will play a key role in assisting the O&M Manager by maximizing plant production, identifying, and initiating appropriate response plans for alarm conditions that may place safety or production at risk, and implementing all applicable regulatory and contractual obligations as they apply to real-time operations fleet wide.

Key Responsibilities Summary

• Monitors and operates plants of all sizes, familiar with use of multiple monitoring and control platforms (ignition, GE Simplicity, canary labs).
• Evaluate complicated operating situations against multiple regulatory and contractual obligations:
  • Operating contracts (O&M Agreement, Power Purchase Agreement, Interconnect Agreement), Balancing Authority tariffs, business practice manuals, transmission and scheduling entity operating handbooks, O&M operating agreements, and any NERC standards applicable to the generator operator / generator owner.
• For equipment under O&M jurisdiction, during equipment changes, safeguards the Generator Owner by enforcing O&M policies, protecting Generator Owner compliance.
• For equipment not yet under O&M jurisdiction, provides monitoring to recognize any high priority alarm conditions that may place company at risk under applicable operating contracts and regulations. Provides recommendations to Commissioning for the purpose of mitigating risk, which recommendations from time to time may involve complicated business trade-offs.
• Initiate and document an appropriate alarm response plan for all trouble indications in accordance with procedure, including documenting low-impact and low-risk trouble indications in CMMS system for planned response; coordinating immediate response for high risk or high impact trouble indications, providing all notifications required by contracts and regulations to the Owner, Transmission Provider, and Scheduling Entity.
• Perform failure analysis using historical data for inverter trips and performance reductions, failures of MV and HV equipment, network equipment, and control systems. Assigns outage classifications to ensure all monthly reporting obligations are met and provide reliability data for McCarthy’s use in future process development and site development.
• Maximize the fleet’s overall value through interactions with maintenance teams across the fleet; understand contractual dispatch obligations for each resource; understand the energy impact of all outages in the context of effective availability and performance requirements; always challenge the maintenance team to maximize the owner’s revenue and bonus; maximize value when accomplishing required maintenance.
• Maintains the operator log for tracking: capacity offline to ensure accurate up-to-date forecasting; trouble conditions and status for purposes of turnover and customer reporting; change in status of any contract or services; control actions implemented at the site or by Control Room; interactions with external regulatory entities.
• The Control Room Operator will be responsible for coordinating day-to-day operations activities for a diverse portfolio of generating facilities under the jurisdiction of many balancing authorities, transmission providers, and scheduling entities.
• Provide safety review for any Procedure written to a specific task by the maintenance team, to ensure that for any Medium Voltage or High Voltage switching operations: minimum isolation requirements are met according to O&M policies and OSHA/NFPA70e
• Execute, maintain, and enforce McCarthy Safety Procedures and Protocols.
• Address and prioritize day-to-day operational activities, including support and management of field resources on testing, inspections, trouble shooting, operational review and analysis.
• Translate technical issues and remediation plans to high level reports for senior level clients and managerial staff.

Skills & Qualifications

• 3+ years’ experience in power plant operations. Degree with emphasis in power systems or formal operations apprenticeship training or equivalent experience
• NFPA 70E & OSHA 30 Certification
• Ability to read and interpret drawings and specifications.
• Strong math and analytical skills.
• Solid interpersonal and communication skills.
• Strong work ethic and desire to work in a team environment.
• Understanding of PV construction and PV Plant Performance analysis.
• Proven leadership skills in a challenging environment
• Builds relationships with subcontractors to obtain a competitive advantage for McCarthy.
• Builds and maintains relationships with internal and external McCarthy clients.
• Keeps current with latest technology and techniques to improve McCarthy competitiveness in the marketplace
• Ability to coordinate multiple activities and ensure safety, quality and schedule adherence.
• Ability to take direction, identify problems, develop solutions, conduct analysis independently and in collaboration with others
• Ability to work in a high stress environment where decisions directly impact personnel safety and equipment reliability
• Proficient computer skills using MS Excel, MS Project, MS Word, and Outlook
• Experience working with and troubleshooting plant SCADA systems and computerized maintenance management systems. (Softwrench)
• Understanding of electronic power system protection equipment purpose/behavior is required.
• Able to demonstrate competent technical knowledge of general plant and system processes, electrical and SCADA systems.
• Able to demonstrate competent technical knowledge in analyzing equipment performance and identifying performance issues using SCADA and data analytical software.

McCarthy is proud to be an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer regardless of race, color, gender, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious beliefs, marital status, genetic information, national origin, disability or protected veteran status.

Keyword: Energy, renewable, photovoltaic, solar power, sustain, sustainability, utility -scale, green, renewable energy, grid operation, power systems, megawatt, energy storage, solar design, battery storage