Power Systems Graduate

**Duration **:2-Year Programme

**Location : Galashields**

**Salary & Benefits - **£32,500 plus £2,500 sign-on bonus, competitive pension and a competitive range of benefits

**Minimum Criteria - Honours Degree (or equivalent) at a minimum of 2:2 in Power Systems, Electrical and Electronic Engineering or similar. Driving Licence (or working towards it).**

**Where you’ll be working**

As a Distribution and Transmission Network Operator, SP Energy Networks keeps the electricity flowing to homes and businesses throughout Central and Southern Scotland, North Wales, Merseyside, Cheshire, and North Shropshire. One of only six Distribution Operators and one of four Transmission Operators in the UK, our actions are crucial to the decarbonisation of the network. The energy landscape is changing fast as the way our customers and communities generate, consume, and interact with energy evolves. Our role is to decarbonise our network through technology and innovation to support the journey to Net Zero. We need to maximise the efficiency of our network to optimise the transmission and distribution of electricity generated from renewables, reducing electricity losses, and allowing us to move away from fossil fuels. With great power comes great responsibility - but we’re up for the challenge

We must ensure we deliver a safe and reliable electricity supply for our customers, who rely on the distribution network more than ever before. Therefore, it is vital we upgrade our network to create the flexibility required to cope with the extensive changes to electricity demand, generation, and consumer behaviour. Within SP Energy Networks we design new network infrastructure to enable new connections onto our network whilst also designing new solutions for ageing parts of the network to improve performance. By analysing the reliability, efficiency, and sustainability of our power systems, this crucial work will help future-proof our infrastructure and deliver a quality network for the homes and businesses within our licence area.

You’ll find more information about SP Energy Networks, including details of our current projects, on our website.

**What you’ll be doing**

You’ll play a key role in driving improvements and upgrades to our network, and you’ll ensure that the electrical network infrastructure remains effective and relevant over time. You’ll work alongside a team of skilled engineers to complete network assessments in addition to drawing design plans for the placement of the new assets. You’ll also actively seek ways to enhance and optimise the infrastructure on an ongoing basis. By identifying areas for improvement, implementing changes, and monitoring the results we can ensure that the infrastructure operates at its best possible performance. As we strive to achieve Net Zero, your work will play a vital role in shaping the future of energy. By analysing the performance of our power systems, you'll help us identify opportunities for renewable energy integration, grid modernisation, and energy efficiency improvements. This will contribute to our overall goal of reducing carbon emissions and creating a sustainable energy infrastructure.

Throughout your two-year IET-accredited programme, you’ll complete a variety of placements across the business. These will allow you to gain experience on a wide range of projects, such as designing our telecontrol equipment so that we can take control of devices remotely from our control room. With customer-centric targets set by Ofgem, we need to get customers back on supply as quickly as possible and this innovative equipment allows us to deliver quicker solutions to our customers and minimise the time, they're off supply. It also lets us gather data for analysis, potentially allowing us to prevent similar instances in the future, further reducing the time that customers are off supply. In addition, by reducing the number of incidents that need attendance by an engineer, we’re removing or limiting the need for travel, thereby reducing our carbon emissions. And in a business as large our ours, spread over a wide geographical area, it all adds up. And of course, there’s the safety aspect as remote control minimises the engineer’s exposure to potentially hazardous environments or situations. Although they’re expertly trained to work on high-voltage equipment there’s no better way to avoid accidents or injuries.

In case you missed it, you'll find more information on our graduate programme on our Graduates Page (opens in a new window).

**What you’ll bring**

You’ll have a real interest in understanding how power systems work and be excited to explore the innovations that will support our Net Zero goal. Following your degree, you should have a good understanding of electrical engineering principles including simulation and awareness of relevant software tools. This academic background will give you an excellent foundation to build your knowledge of powe