Project Co-Lead (Technical) – Capacity Building for ZESCO in Scaled Renewable Energy: CIGZambia

Cities and Infrastructure for Growth Zambia

Position: Project Co-Lead (Technical) – Capacity Building for ZESCO in Scaled Renewable Energy

Location: Lusaka or Kafue Gorge Training Centre, Zambia

Start Date: 1 April, 2020

Contract Duration: 12 months part-time, including 30 days in Zambia and a further 60 days in home location

About Cities and Infrastructure for Growth Zambia (CIGZambia)

CIGZambia is a facility that provides high-quality independent technical advice and assistance to Zambian government bodies and private sector organisations engaged in projects /programmes that help harness the potential of Zambia’s cities and towns to act as drivers for economic growth and job creation. CIGZambia is funded by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID).

The overall programme objectives are:

•  increasing urban productivity
• improving inclusive access to urban economic infrastructure services
• increasing investment into urban economic infrastructure services
• enhancing national and regional integration between cities

About the Role

The consultant will lead a technically complex project that focuses on capacity building within the System Operations and Transmission Network Planning Departments at ZESCO in the areas of (i) grid codes and standards for intermittent renewable energy plants, (ii) renewable energy penetration studies, (iii) connection and compliance procedures and studies for renewable energy plants. The consultant should possess strong technical skills in these areas (recommended 15+ years of experience), as well as proven project management, communication and leadership skills operating in an engineering consulting environment.

The consultant will coordinate a team of experts and in-country support providing capacity building and training to ZESCO in the field of grid scale renewables and they will support ZESCO in ensuring that the codes and standards that apply to renewables are sufficient to enable them to plan and operate an efficient and safe system.

The consultant should possess strong technical skills and experience in these areas having delivered similar support to other utilities, as well as proven project management, communication and leadership skills operating in an engineering consulting environment. It will be key that they can bring a wide range of experience and capability to this team to the ZESCO participants to encourage learning and development and provide technical mentoring.

Project Responsibilities

The consultant will take overall responsibility for the delivery of the technical aspects of this program; managing and reviewing the input from the three other experts in the team, managing the support from the in-country team and coordinating with the Project Co-Lead (Client Facing).

They will use their experience and knowledge in the sector to support all the elements of the program, attending and helping to facilitate some of the workshops and training courses and providing additional support and review as required.

The elements are as follows:

Grid Code Review

This element of the program will bring expert knowledge to support and facilitate the System Operator, Transmission and Distribution departments in ZESCO, the Energy Regulation Board of Zambia (ERB) and other stakeholders in the already formed Renewable Energy Grid Code Review Working Group in developing amendments to the existing transmission and distribution grid codes to ensure they are suitable for the connection of grid scale intermittent or variable renewables (in particular wind and solar).

The support will be provided through facilitated workshops and mentoring and input will be provided through the drafting, stakeholder consultation and publishing phases.

Renewable Energy Penetration Studies

This element of the program will bring expert knowledge to support and facilitate the System Operator and  Transmission Network Planning departments in ZESCO, as well as other stakeholders, including other departments of ZESCO and the Energy Regulation Board of Zambia (ERB) to review the renewables penetration studies previously undertaken by others and to build capacity with a carefully selected group of ZESCO engineers (The REPS Team) to ensure that they have the understanding and capability to plan and undertake these types of studies themselves for a range of scenarios.

The initial objective of the required renewable energy penetration study would be to inform the drafting of the renewable energy grid code (above) but it will also form the basis of dispatch planning, long term network planning, renewable energy policy and network charging work.

Connection and Compliance Studies

This element of the program aims to support a team within ZESCO to define the processes and procedures that intermittent renewable energy generators connecting to the network will need to follow to ensure compliance with the relevant codes and standards.

It will also involve providing high-level training aimed at a diverse range of people interested in the impact of renewable energy on the network and it should provide an overview of the key aspects that need to be considered when connecting these generators to the system (like control, fault levels, inertia, reactive power requirements and harmonics).

There will also be a more detailed training course which includes undertaking some elements of the actual static and dynamic DigSilent studies and understanding the details of the required commissioning tests.

These training courses will be delivered a number of times but will also be passed on (via ‘Train the Trainer’) to be delivered again in the future as part of the syllabus available at the Kafue Gorge Training Centre.

Resourcing and Reporting

The resourcing requirement will vary during the contract but will average approximately 2 days/week.

The consultant would report to the CIGZambia Energy Lead.

It is estimated that the full scope of this programme will be delivered over a period of 12 months starting in April 2020.

Key Knowledge, Experience and Qualifications

• Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree in Relevant Subject (Electrical Engineering);
• Director Level experience in a consulting firm that provides services in the area of transmission system modelling and planning, and integration of renewable energy onto the grid, OR equivalent experience in a large international utility company that has implemented grid enhancement over the last the decade through incorporation of scaled renewable energy;
• Experience in the use of software tools used or transmission planning and modelling, such as PSS/E, DigSilent Powerfactory or similar.
• Knowledgeable of the power industry and able to identify and manage appropriately qualified consultants to deliver the required project to ZESCO;
• Strong project management capabilities;
• Experience in facilitating workshops, providing training and providing technical mentorship;
• Demonstrable skills in written and verbal communication and proven report writing skills to high professional standards.

Applications:

Please send your CV to [email protected]. For CV to be considered, subject line in email must be completed as follows: Project Co Lead ( Technical) – Candidate Last Name, First Name

Deadline for Applications: Sunday 15 March, 2020 @ Midnight