RENEWABLES RESEARCH ENGINEER HF

Job description

Duration: 1 year, plus the potential for an additional year
EDF Energy
EDF Energy operates in the UK and is part of EDF Group, one of the world’s leading electric utilities. EDF Energy is the UK’s largest electricity generator, generating approximately 20% of UK electricity from its nuclear, coal and gas power stations. The company’s Renewables joint venture develops and operates wind farms. Other activities include a fast cycle gas storage facility.
EDF Energy is the largest electricity supplier to British business customers, and is one of the largest electricity and gas suppliers to residential customers with over 5.5million customer accounts.
EDF R&D and EDF Energy R&D UK Centre
Headquartered in Paris, EDF R&D employs 2,000 people in 14 global R&D Centres, complemented by an extensive network of academic and industrial partners. Working on over 500 major research projects, R&D’s mission is to support EDF Group’s operational business units and to anticipate and prepare the Group for the future.
In the early 2010s, EDF Group R&D and EDF Energy opened an R&D Centre in the UK with 60 researchers to bolster R&D activities for the Group in the UK. The R&D UK Centre is an integral part of the Group R&D network and works across the whole value chain of electricity, successfully leading on £40M of international projects.
Renewables Team
Context/Mission
The newly formed Renewables team, a multi-disciplinary team that provides support to EDF at a Group level in Offshore Wind, Onshore Wind and Marine Energy. Their aim is now to apply and expand skills to help EDF, EDF Energy succeed in its Renewable projects across the world and reach its 2030 targets. The key priority is to help reduce costs of Renewables.
This VIE position is based in Croydon, and will be an integral part of both the Renewables team and of the R&D UK Centre.
Renewables VIE – Summary of the Role
Working in conjunction with R&D Engineers based in the UK and France, the R&D Data Analyst will be dividing his/her time between supporting the ROMEO European project by providing the data that is required from our partners to successfully complete the project and by supporting ongoing projects aimed at reducing OPEX and streamlining the data management process. The role will remotely access the central database of our wind farms to retrieve wind turbine condition monitoring data. There will be a need to write scripts in order to effectively manage and process the data in high volumes in a very short time frame. The role will also be responsible for “cleaning” the unusable data before proceeding to the analytics phase, and thus, will need to make sense of the output signals from these sensors.
Principal accountabilities
The successful candidate can expect to have the following objectives (although not all of them):
- Be able to identify ways to reduce OPEX by utilizing data
- Understand key operational procedures and provide suggestions in automating and easing the data collection processes
- Help in identifying and evaluating commercial data management and analytics tools, with the use of EDF’s offshore operational data
- Create a central point of access with operational data (maintenance logs and sensor information) for Blyth Offshore Wind Farm, with:
oAn efficient visualization platform
oAnalysis of basic KPIs used from the operational teams
- Work closely in strengthening the collaboration with departments in R&D France that are working with data analytics solutions
- Investigate different failure diagnostic frameworks to identify root cause analysis of component failures
- Analyse operational data of failed components/subassemblies and investigate different predictive analytics techniques for identifying similar failures in the future
- Aid in creating useful insights and KPIs from the data collected, to be used in maintenance optimization tools, including:
oO&M strategies from Teesside and offshore wind farms, coming from daily maintenance activities
oInformation collected from the SCADA and condition monitoring systems
oProvide inputs for component reliability
Identifying validation cases
Qualifications, Experience, Knowledge & Skills
Essential
- Engineering or scientific background
- Coding (Python, Ms Excel, etc.)
- Knowledge of Data Analytics processes
Desirable
- Experience of working in the energy sector, preferably in wind energy technologies
Key Competencies
- Able to work independently and in teams
- Strong presentation skills
- Use of their own initiative and be self-motivated
- Flexible approach to work and to be able to manage and interact with different stakeholders
- Strong English language skills, both written and oral
Next Steps
Please submit your CV in English along with a short covering letter explaining why you have applied for the role and why we should invite you for interview. Candidates are encouraged to emphasise any specific personal strengths or experiences (academic, work related or social) that you believe are relevant to the role or that would be beneficial to the wider EDF Energy R&D UK Centre team.
Interviews will initially be by telephone, with promising candidates being invited for a subsequent face to face interview in Paris, and/or at EDF Energy’s offices in Croydon.