Data Scientist; Modelling

How would you design the perfect global energy system, if you could start with a blank sheet of paper? A system that meets energy demands without jeopardising the climate of future generations. One that is resilient in the face of extreme weather events, and enables fair and reliable access to energy for all. At Centre for Net Zero we are dedicated to solving this problem!

We are an impact-driven research lab working at the intersection of tech, energy and climate, delivering pioneering research to make a fully sustainable global energy system a reality. We are an autonomous team that sets our own research agenda. Whilst we work closely with Octopus Energy, we are a separate organisation that is part of the Octopus Energy group of companies.

As an innovative and high growth global company, Octopus Energy has access to millions of progressive energy customers with billions of corresponding data points. This gives us unprecedented insight into the energy behaviours of tomorrow, today. We believe that through transparent research, opening up data and building tools in a tech-first way, we can work together to co-design the future energy system.

We are looking for a Data Scientist with a focus on Energy Systems Modelling to join the Data & Modelling team. The primary focus will be the research, prototyping, development, and deployment of complex energy systems models. You will also work on other data projects within Centre for Net Zero. Examples of projects we’ve worked on are predicting whether a household owns low‑carbon technologies, like an electric vehicle or heat pump and building a model of the UK energy grid to understand the impact of energy flexibility on fossil fuel generation.

• Research and develop open-source models to help decarbonise the energy system
• Build and extend models, analyse data, and build data pipelines in Python
• Work with unique energy datasets including smart meter data at national scale and data from large-scale randomised control trials
• Maintain and improve our published models and data products
• Work alongside economists, policy experts, and other data scientists, to shape research questions and modelling approaches, and to drive real-world policy and system change
• Contribute to open-source tools, open data, and our published research
• Present your work internally and at conferences and events

• Understanding of energy systems, including areas such as electricity grids, transmission and distribution, balancing supply and demand, or energy markets
• Experience building quantitative models to solve real-world problems (e.g. optimisation, simulation, statistical, or machine learning models)
• Comfortable working with messy, real-world data at scale (e.g. geospatial or household data)
• Fluency in Python
• Software development practices (e.g. git, testing, code review)
• Proactive curiosity: you independently research unfamiliar topics, think about the wider strategic context of your work, and care about real-world impact

• Experience with open-source energy systems modelling frameworks (e.g. PyPSA, Calliope)
• Familiarity with demand flexibility, electrification of heating and transport, or energy demand data such as smart meter data
• Understanding of how energy systems and data differ across countries
• SQL and experience with large-scale or cloud-based data tools (e.g. GCP, Big Query, dbt)
• Experience deploying and monitoring models in production
• Experience contributing to open-source projects or publishing research

💚 Why else you'll love it here 💚

• 💰 Wondering what the salary for this role is? Just ask us! On a call with one of our recruiters it's something we always cover as we genuinely want to match your experience with the correct salary. The reason why we don't advertise is because we honestly have a degree of flexibility and would never want salary to be a reason why someone doesn't apply to Octopus - what's more important to us is finding the right octofit!

• 🎉Octopus Energy Group is aunique culture. An organisation where people learn, decide, and build quicker. Where people work with autonomy, alongside a wide range of amazing co-owners, on projects that…