Trading Associate Analyst or Analyst

About the Role

The successful candidate will be placed at a level commensurate with their skills and experience. The job summary and responsibilities reflect the duties of the Trading Analyst. The Associate Trading Analyst role will differ as less skills and/or experience will be required.

Position Summary

Design and perform quantitative analysis to price wholesale energy commodity transactions and quantify and hedge risk. Plan and optimize seasonal, monthly, balance-of-month, and daily resource commitment schedules and portfolio positions to provide the most economic operations of the power system portfolios. Perform post-analysis of actual dispatch and system operations for each of the Xcel Energy power system portfolios to determine opportunities for efficiency improvements. Submit XE's bids and offers into organized markets, which requires the employee to be classified as Wholesale Merchant Function.

Key Responsibilities

• Design and perform quantitative studies of historical and forecasted prices, system loads, fuel costs, and determination of the natural position of XE's power system portfolios.
• Support trading and risk management activities through quantifying the natural position of each XE regulated operating company.
• Troubleshoot daily operation of XE's regulated electric operating companies and provide technical support to real-time traders during daily operation of the systems.
• Assist Fuels in the determination of forward fuel requirements and the daily gas nomination process.
• Identify opportunities to improve system operations.
• Design and create analytical studies to model opportunities and determine costs/savings (e.g., rescheduling plant maintenance, alternative operating strategies for certain resources, etc.).
• Help plant operations personnel understand the market implications of plant operating decisions.
• Understand mechanical aspects of power plants and the potential optionality in the various power generation technologies.
• Understand electrical system constraints and operations.
• Create and run modeling scenarios to optimize daily unit commitment, additional purchases/sales, and long-term energy limited or constrained seasonal purchases.
• Verify accuracy of results through extensive post-analysis of XE system performance.
• Evaluate short-term load forecasts, current plant/contract availability, fuel costs, and market conditions.
• Determine quantities of energy to buy/sell, optimal scheduling of constrained resources, and optimal commitment decisions for plants/contractual resources.
• Bid load and offer generation into organized markets on behalf of the company.
• Design and perform post-analysis models of previous day system operation to determine opportunities for dispatch efficiency and purchase/sales improvements.
• Perform benchmarking of models as appropriate to assure analysis integrity.
• Verify accuracy of sales costing.
• Continuously seek improvements to processes and analyses used for purchasing/selling commodities, scheduling of contracted resources, and commitment/dispatch of XE generation assets.
• Perform pricing and costing of Real-Time Pricing Program sales and wholesale sales.
• Analyze and forecast future market prices at various trading points.
• Research energy market trends and energy optimization techniques/tools to support trading contributors.
• Stay abreast of regulatory requirements.
• Recommend trading strategies based on technical market analysis.

Requirements & Tech Stack

• Bachelor's degree in mathematics, engineering, applied sciences, or related fields.
• Minimum 4 years experience in operating mathematical models, data mining, and analytics.
• Experience in Power Operations in SPP, MISO, or other RTO.

Preferred Requirements

• Previous work experience in the electricity industry, including one year in energy commodity trading operations and knowledge of power plant operations.
• At least 1 year experience with generation cost modeling software such as Plexos, Aurora, Prosym, Promod, or Gentrader.

Associate Trading Analyst Minimum Requirements

• Bachelor's degree in mathematics, engineering, applied sciences, or related fields.

Associate Trading Analyst Preferred Requirements

• Mechanical engineering background or individuals with power plant operations experience coupled with strong computer skills and analytical thinking.
• At least 6 months experience with generation cost modeling software such as Plexos, Aurora, Prosym, Promod, or Gentrader.
• Experience in Power Operations in SPP, MISO, or other RTO.