Market Compliance & Policy Analyst

Southern Power Company (Southern Power), a subsidiary of Southern Company, is a leading wholesale energy provider meeting the electricity needs of municipalities, electric cooperatives, investor-owned utilities and other energy customers. Southern Power and its subsidiaries own or operate 55 facilities – including natural gas, wind, solar, battery energy storage and fuel cells – operating or under development in 15 states, with more than 13,000 MW of generating capacity. 

Job Summary

Southern Power’s Market Compliance & Policy team is responsible for ensuring Southern Power’s ongoing compliance with wholesale electricity market rules and regulations and for developing Southern Power’s wholesale electricity market policy strategy.  Southern Power is looking to hire a Market Compliance & Policy Analyst who will have a primary responsibility for ensuring Southern Power’s ongoing compliance with wholesale electricity market rules and regulations, coordinating internal resources to achieve compliance requirements, developing processes and procedures to minimize compliance risk, and responding to Regional Transmission Organization (RTO) and Transmission Service Provider (TSP) requests for information relating to Southern Power’s operations and market activity.  This compliance activity will focus on regulations and standards issued and enforced by priority RTOs (currently the California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), and the Southwest Power Pool (SPP)), certain state utility commissions, and the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC). 

The Market Compliance & Policy Analyst partners closely with other Market Compliance & Policy team members by monitoring the development of new and revised regulations, informing Southern Power’s market policy engagement strategy to account for Southern Power’s compliance obligations, and developing plans to achieve compliance with such updated regulations.  Additionally, and as a secondary responsibility, this position will support Southern Power’s management of generation interconnection requests, including coordinating with internal subject matter experts and providing necessary information to comply with interconnection requirements and to achieve interconnection and commissioning milestones supporting Southern Power’s growth objectives.  Finally, the Market Compliance & Policy Analyst will support the internal reporting of Southern Power’s ongoing market compliance matters (including status, any associated compliance risk, and identified actions to achieve compliance objectives) to Southern Power management and relevant personnel.

The Market Compliance & Policy Analyst is a part of Southern Power’s Commercial Optimization, Trading & Transmission (COT&T) organization and works closely with COT&T, NERC Compliance, Operations, Remote Operations Center, other organizations within Southern Power and Southern Company Services (SCS), industry trade groups, industry peers, and staff members of TSPs and RTOs.  Periodic travel is required to attend RTO and trade group meetings.

Education

Bachelor’s degree is required.  Degree in technical, engineering, business, or equivalent field is desired. An advanced degree in technical, engineering, business, legal, or equivalent field is desired.

Knowledge, Experience, Skills, and Abilities

Knowledge of or experience with organized wholesale electricity markets (e.g., CAISO, ERCOT, ISO-NE, MISO, NYISO, PJM, SPP, etc.), FERC and NERC regulations, RTO stakeholder and regulatory processes, and transmission and interconnection planning processes. Knowledge of or experience with electric energy regulations and associated compliance obligations for electric energy industry entities. Knowledge of or experience with compliance processes and procedures associated with NERC, RTOs, TSPs, or other electric energy industry entities. Knowledge of or experience with federal and state legislative, regulatory, and administrative policy making and compliance enforcement processes. Knowledge of electrical principles and power generation and energy storage technologies. Ability to effectively represent Southern Power externally to fellow stakeholders, RTO staff members, and regulatory agencies. Excellent verbal and written communication skills; ability to simplify complex issues into concise messages to broad audiences. Excellent organization and management skills to successfully manage numerous tasks and priorities and to drive resolution of issues. Ability to understand the potential impact of new policies on Southern Power’s business objectives and to implement actions to meet changing compliance obligations. Strong people skills and ability to work as a team player.

Major Job Responsibilities

Develop subject matter expertise on wholesale electricity market rules and associated compliance processes. Plan for and complete recurring / known market compliance activity and lead internal response efforts to ad hoc compliance requests in a timely manner.  Support the development of internal processes and procedures to effectively and timely identify, monitor, prepare, and complete Southern Power’s market compliance obligations.  Serve as an interface with RTOs and TSPs when Southern Power receives requests for information relating to its facilities. Monitor the development of new or revised regulations that may impact Southern Power’s market compliance obligations and support the formation of compliance plans to meet new or revised compliance requirements. Support the tracking and reporting of Southern Power’s ongoing market compliance activities to Southern Power management. Inform Southern Power’s market policy engagement strategy based on the potential impact of proposed regulations on Southern Power’s compliance obligations. Support Southern Power’s management of interconnection requests by coordinating with internal subject matter experts and providing necessary information to comply with interconnection requirements and to achieve interconnection and commissioning milestones. Strategically identify and develop relationships with key stakeholders, RTO staff members, industry trade groups, and industry peers that hold influence in the stakeholder and regulatory processes. Coordinate with internal business units and external resources to determine the level of impact issues could have on business objectives.  Work with internal / external legal counsel as needed to support market compliance matters.