Senior Advisor, Offtake & Grid Integration

Reports to: Mike O’Connor, Director of the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium

Organization

Description:

The Mountain West Geothermal Consortium (MWGC) is a state-led initiative working to accelerate geothermal energy development across Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona. The Consortium brings together state energy offices, developers, investors, utilities, insurers, and research institutions around a shared goal: removing the policy, financing, and market barriers that prevent geothermal from scaling in one of the most resource-rich regions in the world.

The Mountain West is uniquely positioned to lead a national geothermal buildout. States in the region host the nation’s early demonstrations, benefit from deep subsurface expertise and established supply chains, and contain some of the most promising geologic conditions for next-generation geothermal development—including enhanced geothermal systems (EGS). At the same time, high upfront exploration costs, limited early-stage capital, and the absence of standardized frameworks for project derisking and offtake continue to slow deployment.

The Consortium’s work is organized around three core intervention areas: a drilling derisking mechanism to backstop appraisal well costs and reduce early-stage investment risk; a public data modernization effort to improve access to subsurface resource data for developers; and a utility engagement workstream to create durable pathways for geothermal offtake through IRP inclusion, interconnection access, and improved contracting structures. The Consortium is staffed and managed by the Center for Public Enterprise (CPE) and Constructive, and is funded by philanthropic support.

Position Summary The Senior Advisor, Offtake & Grid Integration will lead the design and refinement of the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium’s utility engagement and offtake workstream—a priority area focused on creating durable pathways for geothermal power purchase, IRP inclusion, and interconnection access across Mountain West states. The role will work across utilities, state energy offices, regulators, and developers to identify where the system is failing geothermal projects and design interventions that can be adopted at the state level.

A core structural challenge this role will address is the mismatch between geothermal development timelines (7–10 years to commercial operation) and utility procurement cycles (3–5 year IRP horizons). The Senior Advisor will move this workstream from diagnosis to intervention, developing advanced procurement models, IRP inclusion frameworks, and contracting structures. They will educate and inform utilities, public utility commissions, and state energy offices toward adoption.

The Senior Advisor will support the mutual goals of the Mountain West Geothermal Consortium and its member state energy offices related to utility procurement and grid integration of geothermal resources.

• Design and refine interventions to close the utility-developer timing gap, including advance procurement mechanisms, clean transition tariffs, centralized state purchasing structures, and IRP inclusion frameworks
• Conduct and synthesize targeted engagement with utilities, developers, and regulators to identify where intervention is most feasible and impactful
• Develop policy briefs, intervention design documents, and supporting materials for use with state energy offices, public utility commissions, and legislative staff
• Lead working sessions with Consortium advisors to pressure-test design choices against utility and developer realities
• Serve as the Consortium’s primary expert voice in grid and offtake-related convenings and state-level engagements

• A suite of offtake and grid…