Innovation Project Lead

77191

This Innovation Project Lead will report to the Innovation Programme Delivery Manager and will work within Innovation Team, Customer Service and VIC&E based in our London Elephant and Castle office. You will be a permanent employee..

You will attract a salary of £54,415 and a bonus of 7.5%

It is unlikely that we'll shortlist you for an interview without a cover letter. This is your first opportunity to show us why you're right for this role.

We also provide the following additional benefits

Annual Leave
Personal Pension Plan - Personal contribution rates of 4% or 5% (UK Power Networks will make a corresponding contribution of 8% or 10%)
Tenancy Loan Deposit scheme

**Tax efficient benefits**: cycle to work scheme
Season ticket loan
Occupational Health support
Switched On - scheme providing discount on hundreds of retailers products.
Supplier discounts, such as O2, EE, Vauxhall cars, Universal tyres
Discounted access to sports and social clubs
Employee Assistance Programme.

**Job Purpose**:
UK Power Networks is proud to be the most reliable, most lowest price electricity distribution group. The Innovation Team has delivered over 50 solutions over the past 5 years delivering more than £300m of savings.

Your work will involve leading our flagship innovation project - Constellation ( UK Power Networks Innovation - Constellation ). Constellation aims to facilitate net zero by transforming our substations to become digital, secure and connected and unlocking further opportunities to improve. This will ensure a more resilient network with capacity to connect more sources of generation to the distribution network.

You will also be involved in the latest innovation, funded by the Network Innovation Allowance (NIA) and Strategic Innovation Funds (SIF), as well undertaking high-profile business-funded programs.

To name a few innovation projects (other than Constellation) in our current portfolio:
Collaborative Local Energy Optimisation (CLEO) - Self service tool to support local authorities in the design of local area energy plans and give us certainty of those plans to unlock network investment.
Powercast - Provision of planned and unplanned power outage notifications and updates through an API that EV service providers can use to improve their customer proposition by passing to customers.
Neighbourhood Green - exploring what normal domestic loads and After Diversity Maximum Demand (ADMD) for heating technologies will be in the future, so that networks can be planned and managed.
Shift 2.0 - explore and test the use of dynamic and locational pricing to address secondary peaks, herding behaviour, and constraints, caused by LCT uptake and conflicting market signals.

Nature and Scope

The energy industry is undergoing unprecedented change. We are moving away from a simple but carbon-intensive model of delivering electricity generated by large coal and gas-fired power stations, to a much more dynamic and complex network with large volumes of distributed energy resources (DERs) connected at distribution level. We are seeing the advent of producer/consumers (or 'prosumers') and local energy markets. The rise of electric vehicles (EVs), renewable energy, storage and, decarbonisation of heating are all contributing to the net-zero and green recovery agendas being promoted by government at all levels.

These fundamental changes are challenging both how we maintain and operate our network today, and creating opportunities for us to deliver in the future. We are committed to playing an important facilitation role in the UK's green economy and to support the transition to a decarbonised and more de-centralised electricity system that is fair and inclusive to all our customers, our role is evolving.

Innovation is at the forefront of this revolution. By developing new ideas, fresh approaches and better processes using the network as a living testbed, Innovation is playing a crucial role not only in making our network safer, more reliable and more efficient, but also in developing technical, digital, commercial and social solutions that support decarbonisation strategies and address the needs of tomorrow's customers.

You will support the Innovation team to develop specific innovation strategies, including the deployment of smart solutions to deal with the changing dynamics of electricity networks influenced by the acceleration in the volume of decentralised generation and the electrification of heat and transport. To evaluate these strategies, the team will develop research studies and demonstration projects to test the network impact and benefits associated with the implementation of creative solutions.

You will have overall responsibility for the leadership and delivery of innovation projects, including directing in-house and external resources engaged in the technical and commercial solutions, management of trials, analysis and distribution of results.

**Responsibilities**:
**Project Management and Technica