Solar Performance Engineer - Solar

Position: Staff Solar Performance Engineer - Solar (Multiple Locations)
Description The Power global practice at Burns & McDonnell provides a comprehensive approach to power generation solutions from project siting and permitting through turnkey construction and startup and commissioning. Our experience covers the full breadth of renewable power generation technologies, including: utility-scale solar, battery storage, hydrogen, carbon capture, and nuclear plant services.

Burns & McDonnell's Power global practice is seeking to hire an experienced Solar Performance Engineer to support our collection of active utility-scale solar engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) projects through preconstruction, commissioning, testing, and project turnover. This role will focus on solar energy modeling, performance guarantee support, and performance testing for projects typically ranging from 65 MWdc to 400 MWdc.

The Solar Performance Engineer will serve as a technical resource across project phases, helping to establish expected plant performance during preconstruction and validating actual performance during commissioning and testing prior to substantial completion. The successful candidate will work closely with engineering, construction, commissioning, project management, and clients to develop site-specific performance test procedures, analyze SCADA and meteorological data, evaluate equipment performance, detect and resolve performance deficiencies, and support successful demonstration of contractual performance guarantees.

This position is suited for an individual contributor or technical lead who is comfortable operating in both office and field environments. A successful individual is one who can translate plant design assumptions and contractual obligations into executable testing and analytical methods for EPC project delivery.

Responsibilities

+ Develop and maintain project energy models for utility-scale solar projects using PVsyst to support preconstruction, proposal development, technical reviews, and performance guarantee assumptions.

+ Review design inputs and assumptions affecting modeled energy and performance, including meteorological data, equipment selection, loss assumptions, clipping, module soiling, and module degradation.

+ Support the technical review of performance guarantee exhibits, contracts, and test requirements. This includes identifying commercial and technical risks during both contract negotiations and project execution.

+ Develop capacity and availability test procedures in alignment with contract requirements, project design, and industry-accepted performance methodologies.

+ Perform capacity and availability test analyses to validate plant performance, determine pass/fail results, and write technical reports to support substantial completion.

+ Analyze SCADA, inverter, tracker, and MET station data to validate plant behavior, identify underperformance drivers, and support troubleshooting during commissioning and performance testing.

+ Validate equipment and plant-level performance by comparing measured field results to modeled expectations and design intent.

+ Coordinate with peers across the engineering, construction, startup and commissioning, and project management teams in order to prepare projects for successful performance testing and final turnover.

+ Support development of data collection requirements, instrumentation checks, and MET station validation needed for accurate performance testing.

+ Prepare technical memoranda, performance analyses, and test reports that clearly communicate assumptions, results, risks, and recommended corrective actions.

+ Perform on-site commissioning, test execution, punch list resolution, and substantial completion support.

+ Contribute to continuous improvement of Burns & McDonnell's performance modeling, testing procedures, templates, and best practices across the solar EPC portfolio by staying up-to-date on industry trends, modeling methodology, and applicable codes or standards.

+ Comply with all company policies and standards, including by promoting a strong safety culture.

+ This role builds on the analytical and cross-functional foundation of Burns & McDonnell's solar engineering work while emphasizing performance validation and project closeout.

+ Support other duties as assigned to drive successful completion and closeout of EPC solar projects.

+ All other duties, as assigned.

Qualifications

+ Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering or related degree from an ABET accredited program.

+ 3 years of related professional electrical engineering experience, with solar EPC consulting experience preferred.

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Experience with PVsyst for utility-scale solar energy modeling highly preferred.

+ Experience developing and/or executing capacity test and availability test procedures and analyses for solar projects is preferred.

+ Experience analyzing SCADA and MET data to evaluate plant and equipment performance, including inverters, trackers and met stations is preferred.

+ Strong knowledge in standard engineering techniques and…