Principal Economist

The Power Systems and Markets Research Group, in the Energy Systems and Infrastructure Analysis division at Argonne National Laboratory requires expert technical assistance to support the laboratory in its deliverables related to the pumped storage hydro valuation program at DOE’s Water Power Technologies Office.

Specific activities may include leading projects and tasks supporting technoeconomic studies of pumped storage hydro projects and energy storage projects more broadly.

The applicant would be required to conduct evaluations of the bulk energy, ancillary service, transmission service, and other services provided by energy storage systems both from a system and owner-operator perspective.

They would be expected to lead the development of optimization models and tools for evaluating the benefits of energy storage operations for multiple technologies at multiple sites across the US, develop financial models to evaluate the full benefits and costs at each site to determine return on investment from system and owner-operator perspectives, present the results of their research at one conference per year, and submit final reports for each project they support.

Lead and support technical, economic, and environmental analyses of energy and power systems, with particular focus on pumped storage hydro and other energy storage systems.

Develop and apply methodologies and tools for techno-economic analyses of energy technologies and systems, including conventional and renewable electricity generating technologies and distributed energy resources, including energy storage systems.

Tools include computer modeling and simulations, databases, analysis algorithms, computational methodologies, economic and financial models.

Analyses include power system operation and expansion, engineering economics and finance, life cycle analysis, optimization and equilibrium analysis, impact analysis, market penetration, interdependencies.

A particular emphasis of this position will be on energy storage, including technoeconomic analysis, market assessments, microgrid model development, optimization modeling, and support of ongoing and new efforts to evaluate the value of PSH to the power grid.

Relevant subject matter expertise in the evaluation of cost and technical performance of energy storage technologies will also be highly valued, as will be a demonstrated capacity to lead teams in the completion of the types of energy storage assessments previously defined.

Candidates must have an education and / or experience in the economics discipline.

Position Requirements

Strong knowledge of the power system and market benefits of pumped storage hydro facilities, and energy storage systems more broadly.

Deep experience in evaluating the financial benefits of energy systems using custom-built simulation tools.

Experience designing, implementing, and evaluating the performance of field-deployed energy storage systems.

Deep experience in the development of financial models and in conducting benefit-cost analysis.

Strong knowledge of energy policy.

Experience in leading multi-lab teams in evaluating the technical and financial benefits of energy systems.

Experience informing decision making on energy system transitions at the national, state and / or community level, including the evaluation of clean energy procurement programs.

Experience developing online tools for evaluating the technoeconomic benefits of grid assets.

Experience in defining hazards / risks to energy assets and defining the value of resiliency.

The minimum education requirements are :

Master’s and 20+ years, or

Doctorate and 15+ years.

Job Family

Research Development (RD)

Job Profile

Eng Systems Modeling-Simulation-Analysis 5

Worker Type

Regular

Time Type

Part time