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Project Development Director
Cooperative Energy Futures (CEF) is a member-owned cooperative that works to make clean energy accessible to all. We envision a future where community members own, manage, and use clean energy systems together for the collective benefit of all of us. While one person can only influence their own energy bills and use, many people acting together can change the entire energy system.
CEF is an affirmative action and equal opportunity employer and sees unique and diverse perspectives as essential to be able to achieve our mission and live our values. We have developed and operate 13 community solar gardens across the state of Minnesota, offsetting the electricity needs of and saving money for 800 member households and counting. CEF has a particular focus on economic and racial justice, working to ensure that all projects are developed using an economic model that is deeply accessible to members regardless of income or ability to pay, as well as prioritizing workforce equity in the solar industry. CEF uses member participation in these projects to build community wealth and unite and activate members from many different communities around a vision for our energy future that is rooted in community-controlled clean energy.
$75,000 - $85,000
Full-Time, 40 hours a week
This person is primarily responsible for organizing and coordinating the team that secures, builds, manages, and maintains our solar projects. This includes our community solar gardens and our rooftop solar projects for low-income households (single family and multi-family housing). This position will also be responsible for managing internal and external partners to review ongoing solar project performance and making adjustments with external maintenance partners to ensure the projects are operating optimally.
Job Responsibilities:
Manage the CEF Development Team
- Coordinate the operations of the three person project development team, including a Solar Development Manager and two SIte Acquisition team members.
- Improve operations of the development team through rigorous process development and execution.
Execute the Logistics of CEF’s Solar Projects
- Manage all activities related to legal documentation including site leases, contracts, and insurance of our projects.
- Support Development team in the interconnection process by developing working relationships with program managers at Xcel to foster continuous improvement.
Seek and Secure New Community Solar Garden Sites
- Improve strategy and manage the process for evaluating new potential solar project sites.
- Lead or participate in pitch meetings or lease negotiations with owners of new potential project sites as needed by site acquisition team members.
Managing Development of CEF Solar Projects
- Support program managers in developing solar project management tools and processes.
- Support the Solar Development Manager in managing EPC contractor relationships.
- Ensure efficient processes for investor and lender due diligence review of projects and related project budgeting and financial management.
- Support the Development team in procurement strategies and securing domestic content equipment.
- Collaborate with other CEF Program Directors to satisfy project requirements of our partners and stakeholders.
- Track progress and ensure organized storage and updating of project documents.
- Develop and utilize a standardized process for project management documented in a handbook or process chart.
Monitor Operations and Maintenance of Community Solar Gardens:
- Coordinate process for monitoring garden production vs. expected value on a pre-established schedule.
- Manage contracts and budget for Operations and Maintenance of all active projects.
Assessment and Implementation of New Business Models
- Collaborate with other members of CEF leadership to assess the growing need for storage/batteries, virtual power plants, district ground source heating, geothermal, and how those items can fit within our current or future project portfolio.
Minimum Qualifications
- Minimum 3-5 years experience in solar design and development or other project development in industries like housing, construction, etc.
- Highly organized with high attention to detail, tracking large amounts of intersecting tasks and information, and ability to establish and maintain a complex development timeline.
- A team player with strong ability to work in a collaborative environment
- Ability to maintain confidential information.
- Must be reliable, self-motivated individual who can take direction and be trusted to work independently with minimal supervision
- Excellent communication skills, able to represent the organization well among our employees and with our community partners.
- Demonstrated ability to work well under pressure, including meeting unexpected and inconvenient process requirements, and juggle multiple time-sensitive tasks on deadline.
- Demonstrate strong computer skills, including PDF editing and use of Microsoft Office Suite (Excel, Word, PowerPoint).
Preferred Qualifications
- Familiarity with both large roof-top and ground-mount solar development and interconnection processes.
- Sales and customer relationship management experience; readiness to pitch a potential host site and engage them to close a deal.
- Electrical engineering experience/ ability to read and evaluate electrical designs.
- Experience selling products or services to owners of large commercial buildings and/or open land (usually farmland).
- Experience working with task management tools like Monday.com, Asana, SmartSheet, Sharepoint, etc.
- Experience implementing organizational process improvement programs and single-source-of-truth data resources.
- Experience working with solar project management tools.
- Experience with CAD or other site plan development software, especially for solar development.
- Commitment to the environment and to working with community-based organizations and culturally diverse communities.
Submit a Resume and a Written Statement explaining why you are interested in the position(s) you are applying for to hiring@cooperativeenergyfutures.com. Please include which position(s) you are applying for in the Subject Line. We will send additional follow up questions and interview scheduling to candidates we wish to interview. These positions will remain open until filled.
