Career Center

Platte River Power Authority is a public power provider that has emerged as a leader in Colorado’s utility sector. Our staff works collaboratively and efficiently to safely deliver reliable, environmentally responsible and financially sustainable energy and services to our owner communities of Estes Park, Fort Collins, Longmont and Loveland.

We share a sense of purpose and great pride in what we do and the value we provide to our communities, our region and the energy industry. If you’re searching for a collaborative working environment within a mid-sized organization that values innovative ideas, diverse perspectives and provides opportunities to make a difference, consider joining the Platte River team.

Data Scientist

The Data Scientist develops and maintains information applications, data management structures and predictive models to support decision making within Platte River's Resource Planning and Operations departments. Responsibilities include maintaining and developing tools and analytical environments for these departments to support long and short term planning, operational optimization and transaction evaluation while working closely with other stakeholders and in line with the guidelines of the IT organization.

Essential duties and responsibilities

Must possess required knowledge, skills, abilities and experience and be able to perform, with or without reasonable accommodations, the essential functions of the job.

• Designs and develops descriptive, predictive models and optimization algorithms to provide actionable insight of big data for resource planning, forecasting and market operations needs
• Prepares long term load forecasts of monthly and hourly energy needs and use per customer using multivariate econometrics, times series, and end-use methods
• Prepares short term wind and solar generation forecasts
• Develops and maintains regional economic datasets and participate in regional planning studies
• Communicates complex concepts and the results of the analyses in a clear and effective manner to Platte River’s management team
• Initiates the efficient implementation of methods, tools, and algorithms to help optimize Platte River’s current market operations and any future participation in RTOs
• Manages the development and maintenance of data warehouse and enterprise data management products for internal business uses
• Identify, retrieve, manipulate, relate and/or exploit multiple structured and unstructured data sets from various sources, including building or generating new data sets as appropriate
• Hands-on application development of machine learning techniques on large datasets to help create commercial value and competitive advantage for Platte River’s resources
• Extends Platte River’s data capabilities with third party sources of information when needed
• Engages with IT teams such as Data Management, DBAs, Security, Storage, and Networking when their involvement is required to meet project needs
• Participates in developing and documenting technical standards and best practices
• Supports Integrated Resource Planning with renewables, storage and DER (distributed energy resources) using planning models such as Plexos. Develop tools to manage input/out for the planning models
• Performs other duties as assigned
• Maintains regular and reliable attendance

Platte River Power Authority offers employees an outstanding benefits package. Benefits offered for this position may include the following: health insurance options including PPO and high deductible with health savings account; telemedicine; benefit advocacy; dental and vision insurance; FSA; basic as well as voluntary life insurance and accidental death and disability; long-term disability insurance; paid holidays; paid time off; wellness program; in-house training opportunities; tuition reimbursement; and employee assistance program.

For additional information, please see our website careers page at: https://www.prpa.org/careers/benefits/

Knowledge, skills and abilities

The following are required:

• High degree of organizational and program management skills
• Proven ability to interpret and follow program procedures
• Thorough knowledge of Microsoft Office products, standard programming/scripting languages
• Proven ability to develop professional documents, communications, and presentations
• Demonstrated ability to clearly express ideas in both written and oral communications
• Proven self-motivation and creativity working in a small-group work environment
• Thorough knowledge of programming and analytical methods, and information sources
• Ability to remain insurable under Platte River's vehicle liability policy

The following are preferred:

• Knowledge of power and energy systems, such as wholesale power markets (SPP, PJM, MISO, CAISO, etc.), Power Systems Analysis and Economics, Demand Response, Distributed Generation
• Proven collaboration on a multi-disciplinary or multi-agency team setting

Minimum qualifications

• Bachelor’s degree in a quantitative discipline such as computer science, data science, math/statistics, economics or related field
• Three years of experience in advanced statistical modeling and machine learning techniques
• Three years of experience in econometrics and time-series forecasting methodologies
• Three years of experience in programming skills with proficiency in SQL and at least one scripting language such as Python or R
• Current valid driver's license and ability to remain insurable under Platte River's vehicle liability policy

Preferred qualifications

• Master's degree in computer science, data science, math/statistics, economics or related field
• Three years of experience in linear and nonlinear programming
• Three years of experience conducting data mining, design experiments, and developing predictive models and machine learning algorithms