Performance Engineer Intern

Urban Grid, a leading independent power producer, facilitates a rapid and sustainable energy transition by developing high-quality renewable energy projects, fostering community partnerships, and serving as a good land steward. Our company is positioned to own and operate its facilities while cultivating a land management system that benefits farmers, communities, and the natural world through agrivoltaics. Urban Grid maintains a delivery-focused approach with the goal of being a good neighbor, corporate citizen, and trusted energy solutions partner. Headquartered in Houston, Texas, with teams situated strategically throughout the United States, Urban Grid has a long history of contributing to the clean energy economy. In addition to 940 megawatts currently under construction, we are actively developing a growing portfolio of more than 12,000 megawatts of solar PV and 7,000 megawatts of co-located and stand-alone energy storage. To learn more, please visit www.UrbanGridSolar.com.

Urban Grid is a portfolio company of Brookfield. one of the world’s largest owners and operators of renewable power and climate transition assets.

We are looking for an experienced and motivated Performance Engineer Intern to join our team. The successful candidate will be a key member of the Engineering team and participate in engineering, designing, and developing utility-scale PV Solar Power Plants. The Performance Engineer Intern role at Urban Grid will entail the production of detailed calculations of renewable energy power plants along with the demonstrated ability to work in a team setting with multiple concurrent deadlines. The successful candidate will have a strong engineering and mathematical background, programming experience, and will develop new tools and creative techniques to ensure Urban Grid maintains its competitive place in the renewables sector. Urban Grid is seeking a self-managed team-player with excellent technical skills to support projects from development to the beginning of construction.

Job duties will focus on developing key tools and calculations and other technical tasks. The successful candidate should be excited to participate in the modeling and design of a site, including site research, working with outside consultants and vendors, and contributing to the entire process of modeling the production of a solar power plant.

This is a paid internship that will start on or around June 3, 2024, with an end date of August 9, 2024.

During the 10-week program, interns will participate in virtual, company-wide and department meetings, virtual bi-weekly Friday lunch & learn trainings and a culminating group presentation on your overall internship experience. The program is structured to provide exposure to careers in renewable energy, best practices in internal communications as part of a remote/ hybrid team and best of all, the opportunity to work and support a team of professionals who are experts in their field.

Responsibilities

• Assist the Performance Engineering team to develop several key tools to be used for the energy modeling process for utility-scale solar power plants.
• Work with CAD or CAD outputs to use for calculations and modeling.
• Leverage Python or Matlab programming skills to develop specific tools to be used in energy modeling.
• Apply mathematical and engineering concepts to develop working products.
• Maintain familiarity with renewables technology, namely utility-scale solar power plant design components, products, equipment, and their specifications.
• Areas of focus will be on sub-hourly clipping, tracking algorithms and optimization, energy modeling, and data analysis.
• Accompany Project Engineering Team member(s) on a project site visit to an active construction project

Job duties will focus on developing key tools and calculations and other technical tasks. The successful candidate should be excited to participate in the modeling and design of a site, including site research, working with outside consultants and vendors, and contributing to the entire process of modeling the production of a solar power plant.

Location

This position will be primarily remote with periodic meetups with our team. Preferably within the Eastern time zone.

Candidate to work full-time hours Monday - Friday during the summer duration of the internship.

Requirements

• Pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, Applied Physics, or Applied Mathematics must be a sophomore or above
• Interest in renewable energy
• Must be proficient in Python and/or Matlab programming.
• Must be proficient in Microsoft Office tools.
• Must have taken advanced level mathematics/engineering/physics courses.
• Must be able to read and apply scientific research literature, engineering articles, or other technical documents.
• Have working knowledge of modern solar power plant design and technologies used therein.
• Must have excellent oral and written communication skills. Must be able to coordinate and communicate with multiple disciplines, organizations, agencies, vendors, and contractors.
• Must have strong organizational capacity to simultaneously manage multiple projects with competing deadlines and be able to quickly adapt to changes and shift priorities to meet project needs and deadline.
• Must have excellent oral and written communication skills. Must be able to coordinate and communicate work with multiple disciplines, and team members.
• Strong work ethic and exceptionally high work standards
• Work pro-actively individually, and collaboratively within the team
• Self-motivated and work with minimal direction

Benefits

Interns will receive 24 hours of PTO, 2 paid holidays and a $60 monthly cell phone reimbursement during their internship.