PERFORMANCE MANAGER
Fixed term maternity cover 12 months
Global Performance & Monitoring Team
Based in, or with frequent travel to Bath

Since its founding in 2010, Lightsource bp has grown rapidly to become a global market leader in the development, acquisition, and long-term management & operation of solar energy projects. In addition to being a multi-GW developer of utility-scale plants, Lightsource bp has invested heavily in its Asset Services division, that is, the internal capabilities required to manage, operate, and optimise a solar site over its lifespan. Long one of the largest Owners and Operators of solar in the UK, LSbp’s Asset Services business is rapidly scaling alongside our development business, now with additional assets under management in the United States, Spain, Brazil, Poland, and Australia.

Global Performance & Monitoring
The LSbp Global Performance & Monitoring team sits within the Asset Services business, acting as the nerve centre through which all asset data flows on a daily basis. The insights generated by the team are disseminated across Lightsource, providing the foundation for data-based decision-making. From a simple decision to dispatch an engineer to site to investigate a fault to deciding to proceed with a multi-million pound site retrofit, the process starts with the Global Performance & Monitoring team. We measure our success by the performance of our international fleet of assets, as well as by the service we provide to our O&M and Asset Management stakeholders, in the form of data feeds, reporting, insight generation, and recommendations.

Recruitment context
The GP&M team is geographically oriented, with a team looking all elements of performance monitoring & optimisation for each of (1) the United Kingdom, (2) Americas (USA and Brazil), and (3) Europe/APAC (Spain, Poland, Australia). We are seeking a fixed term maternity leave cover for 12 months to lead the team looking after the United Kingdom portfolio.

The UK portfolio team is our most mature Performance team, existing for over 10 years. It is unique in that it is highly integrated with our UK Operations & Maintenance business, with both the O&M and Performance teams being collocated in Bath, England.

The Performance Manager will be responsible for managing a team of 7 performance analysts and ensuring the smooth operation of a 7-days a week monitoring operation, as well as overseeing reporting and analysis functions for key stakeholders in O&M and Asset Management. The Performance Manager will be responsible for 1.4 GWp of assets under management, including three BESS assets.

The Performance Manager will sit on the Global Performance & Monitoring leadership team, reporting to the Head of Global Performance & Monitoring. They will also be a de facto member of the UK O&M management team and participate in regularly management forums of this business unit, which is a leading player in the UK O&M space. They will benefit from the support of the knowledge & experience of the broader GP&M team which comprises 20 people globally.

Role summary
Leading a team of Performance Analysts, the Performance Manager ensures the delivery of a rigorous daily monitoring service guaranteeing that faults and underperformance of c. 180 assets are identified rapidly, triaged, and passed to relevant members of the broader O&M team for rectification.

The team is also responsible for asset performance analysis, calculation of KPIs (availability, performance ratios, etc.), and production of reports used both internally and delivered to asset owners, financial lenders, tax equity partners, etc. Detail-orientation, a highly rigorous analytical mindset, and collaboration with many parts of the business are hallmarks of this team.

The role requires a very close and regular relationship with the UK Operations & Maintenance team. Other stakeholders include the LSbp Asset Management and Investment Management teams, with interactions focused on communication of underperformance issues found on sites through data analysis, and the tracking of resolutions in a timely manner. The Performance Manager also plays a key role in third-party client interactions, operating in concert with the O&M and AM client relationship holders.

A successful Performance Manager will need to bring to bear leadership and people development skills, drive continuous improvement initiatives, and act as a leader within the O&M business and Global Performance & Monitoring function.

Duties and Responsibilities

Management of day-to-day asset monitoring

• Oversee the 7 days-a-week, 365 days per year Monitoring operation with a team of 5 Performance Analysts covering the entire UK portfolio of sites
• Maintain and improve our system for rapidly identifying faults and making them available in the best format possible for actioning by the O&M business
• Coach and develop the Performance & Monitoring team to ensure a consistent, high-quality service
• Ensure uninterrupted service from external providers (e.g., monitoring platform, metering services) by building and maintaining relationships within the vendor companies.

Asset performance reporting and performance analysis

• Oversee the compilation and dissemination of asset performance data to both internal users of the data as well as Clients in the form of official reports in line with internal and external deadlines
• Ensure integrity, timeliness, and digestibility of historic performance data, making it available to relevant parties for analysis
• Perform analyses to identify root causes and actionable issues on sites (e.g., desktop string tests), underperformance reporting and analysis
• Facilitate the resolution of contractual performance calculations between Asset Management/3rd party clients and Client Portfolio team.

Communications & data flows

• Provide guidance and prioritisation to the O&M teams to determine their focus in delivering maximum uptime of communications of production and irradiance data from site
• Track ongoing KPI measures and participate in cross-functional operational huddles, bringing performance insight to influence decision-making
• Act as steward of raw data flows, assuring quality and accuracy, and working with Digitalisation colleagues to extract maximum value out of our data warehousing and BI tools

Continuous improvement & transformation

• Proactively identify continuous improvement opportunities and implement solutions, drawing on support from the broader Group where required
• Develop tools and analyses that can be used to increase efficiency or drive performance improvements within the solar portfolio
• Support the implementation and testing of the company’s new, industry-leading Data Lake, Advanced Analytics, and CMMS/EAMS tool.
• Keep abreast of monitoring-related developments in the solar market, that could be applied or built into our services to ensure we keep ourselves at the leading edge

Other responsibilities

• Support the O&M Client Relations team in the preparation of internal and external performance documents
• Work with broader LSbp Group on internationalisation efforts, particularly collaborating with Madrid-based teams to test new monitoring platforms/equipment
• Occasional travel to London or Madrid offices, conferences, etc.

Work Skills

• Must be fluent in spoken and written English
• Must be an advanced user of Microsoft Excel (incl. VBA)
• Must be able to work with large datasets and be comfortable querying datasets – prior experience with Snowflake and/or Microsoft Azure products an asset
• Must have experience with solar monitoring platforms (e.g., In Access, GPM, etc.)
• Python, R, SQL and/or other programming skills are an asset
• Automated data visualisation & communication experience (e.g., Power BI, Tableau) will be considered an asset

General Skills/Attributes

• Ability to work cross-functionally to deliver outcomes
• Possesses an analytical mind, keen to identify and solve problems
• Excellent written and verbal communications skills – able to go beyond just presenting data to pull out key insights
• Experience leading and developing teams
• Able to manage interaction with internal and external stakeholders
• Relentless attention to detail and drive to produce quality work
• Organisation and work ethic to deliver against critical deadlines
• Possesses a mindset of continuous improvement, always looking for opportunities to improve, both as an individual and a team
• Passionate about renewables and the energy transition

Knowledge

• Strong technical understanding of solar operations, monitoring platforms, and metering
• Thorough conceptual understanding of solar performance metrics and calculations
• Experience being an internal service provider within an organisation
• Experience with performance reporting for solar assets
• Data flows underlying SCADA and monitoring systems

Experience Required

• Experience working in the solar or renewables industry, preferably in a performance analysis and reporting capacity within Asset Management or O&M
• Demonstrable experience of improving the performance of solar plants through data

Education and Qualifications
Degree in Renewable Energy, Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, or Computer Science; or, Foundation Degree (eg, Fd A, Fd Sc), Diploma of Higher Education (Dip HE) related with Renewable Energy or/and data analysis.