New Markets Project Developer - DG Capacity

New Leaf Energy's DG Capacity business, a new segment of the development business, develops distribution-connected standalone storage and solar-plus-storage projects to meet persistent capacity shortfalls driven by large loads such as data centers. Rather than relying on retail programs and tariffs paid for by ratepayers, DG Capacity portfolios will be aggregated, accredited, and sold into wholesale energy and capacity markets, and compensated directly or indirectly by large loads. The initial focus is PJM, where the need for capacity is most acute.

The DG Capacity team is small, senior, and cross-disciplinary, spanning grid solutions, interconnection and market participation, project sales and finance, and project development. It works closely with New Leaf's Regional Teams, the Utility-Scale team, and the Policy and Business Development team. The team is also architecting one of New Leaf Energy's DG development platforms of the future; the processes, tools, and product standards it builds are intended for adoption across markets as persistent capacity shortfalls emerge in other RTOs.

Unlike other development roles at New Leaf Energy that focus on the full range of development activities in established markets, this position is responsible primarily for developing beachhead positions in new markets and for guiding the transition of those markets from new, untested verticals into mature, core verticals with hundreds of MWs of opportunity. In this role you should have significant origination and project development experience and be excited about starting new markets, building your own playbook, and tackling the kinds of novel challenges that arise with first-of-their-kind opportunities in new geographies. The position will be fast-paced, will require superior organizational skills, and may require considerable travel, depending on where the opportunities arise.

The New Markets Project Developer will build and nurture relationships with local stakeholders: landowners, local governments, utilities, policy-makers, and others. You will be the primary regional expert for new markets in the company, and will need to quickly develop fundamental market knowledge and intelligence in new places to create and execute successful project development plans that will provide launchpads for our expansion into those markets. As part of those development plans, you will be required to develop roadmaps for the entitlement and interconnection processes that will allow for optimal development in nascent markets. You will be expected to identify potential development spending in new markets and work closely with our valuation and pricing teams to develop a hypothesis on the deal economics and return on investment for the vertical. You will also be expected to begin project development activities on dozens of sites, negotiating agreements with landowners, starting the entitlement and interconnection processes, and moving projects through New Leaf Energy's project development process with a considerable expectation of autonomy and strategic vision.

On the DG Capacity team, the New Markets Project Developer reports to the Vice President of DG Capacity and partners with the Senior Director of Development to execute campaigns. The role secures site control, applies for interconnection, and manages initial site discovery, taking projects through Kickoff before handing them off to Regional Teams.

Position responsibilities will include, but are not limited to:

New Market Development

• Create market entry strategies for new markets based on market size, market maturity, and ability to overcome critical path items of a market to achieve desired target market share;
• Identify critical path items at the market and project level in a new market and establish solutions for resolution;
• Translate development requirements into a set of sequential timely development activities from site control to Membership Interest Purchase and Sale Agreements (MIPA);
• Establish development budgets and spending waterfalls (i.e. thresholds of development) based on de-risking of market-level and/or project-level critical path items;
• Identify within each pillar of development (real estate, interconnection, design, permitting, valuation) the critical path items for project development to take a site from Letter of Intent (LOI) to MIPA closing;
• Work with consultants to identify the required steps to permitting a project in a new market;
• Set up prospecting infrastructure in new markets;
• Maintain accurate information about verticals in New Leaf Energy's systems of record.

DG Capacity Campaign Execution

• Execute the prospecting campaigns designed by the Senior Director of DG Capacity Development, including geography, site criteria, interconnection screens, and landowner and partner outreach;

• Apply the team's relative-value screens when advancing sites: energy communities, favorable AHJs, efficient DG interconnection, and the same utility zone as large loads;
• Identify and research leads through targeted land campaign work, including mailers, phone calls, and other outreach;
• Secure site control, submit interconnection applications, and manage initial site discovery and vendors, including:

• Real estate negotiations: with support from senior team members, manage landowner relationships and negotiate key real estate agreements, including leases, easements, and purchase agreements, to assemble all necessary land for the project;
• Site due diligence and permitting: conduct desktop reviews of potential site characteristics, including topography, soil conditions, access, and the likelihood of wetlands and environmental restrictions, among other site conditions; request quotes and release additional on-site work such as surveying and wetland delineations; site walks, and other activities necessary to sufficiently understand the viability of and de-risk a given site.

• Assist in transitioning projects to the appropriate Regional Team at the appropriate time, likely around Kickoff;
• Contribute to the team's goal of signed LOIs and Kickoffs, and track pipeline status and spending against plan.

Project Shaping and Market Building

• Support the Senior Director in shaping projects to grid needs, including sizing, point-of-interconnection selection, and limited or flexible export design;
• Provide project- and site-level inputs to the target-market scorecard, jurisdiction screens, and hosting-capacity analyses;
• Share field intelligence from utilities, AHJs, and landowners with the IX & Market Participation Lead and the Senior Director of Sales, to inform market rules engagement and customer strategy;
• Engage with communities and AHJs, building trust-based relationships on behalf of New Leaf Energy. You will attend local meetings, build connections within host communities, and onboard local permitting and community engagement partners as necessary.

Ways of Working

• Own identified deliverables within specific timeframes, and clearly communicate progress and impacts to a critical path to the VP, Senior Director and project teams;
• Collaborate with civil, design, interconnection engineering, real estate, and legal to move projects forward;
• Contribute to standard work and SOPs for DG Capacity campaigns and the Kickoff handoff, and drive continuous improvement in your work area;
• Demonstrate an understanding of the New Leaf North Star and the three cultural pillars, and practice them.

Desired Qualifications

• Strong knowledge of the solar industry; or, if not, equivalent knowledge and experience in a similar and/or adjacent project development or real estate development context;
• Successful track record in a complex sales or project development environment, preferably in solar and/or energy storage. By "complex sales" we mean large, technical, construction and/or financial products with long sales cycles that require relationship building, lead generation, navigation of complexity, and deal closing;
• Ability to analyze market sizes and develop a competitive landscape to establish target market shares for New Leaf Energy;
• Understanding of market structures and how they translate into financeable development assets (e.g., PPA-backed asset vs. community solar etc.);
• Ability to identify, define & understand the project-level assumptions that drive a project's valuation;
• Experience with distributed generation site control, interconnection applications, and early-stage permitting, preferably for standalone storage or solar-plus-storage projects;
• Familiarity with distribution interconnection and hosting capacity; interest in wholesale capacity markets, PJM, and FERC Order 2222 is a plus;
• Comfort working with GIS tools, site screens, and systems of record such as Salesforce;
• Excellent organizational and time management skills, with the ability to manage many sites at once in a fast-paced environment;
• Ability to work independently in new geographies while collaborating closely with a small, senior team;
• Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience;
• Travel: considerable, at times, depending on where opportunities arise.

Compensation 

New Leaf Energy compensates all employees in three ways: market-competitive base salary, plus above-market variable compensation, plus an equity-like program such that all employees experience the benefits of ownership. We use a data-driven and transparent methodology to calibrate compensation that is externally competitive and internally equitable, guided by the New Leaf Energy compensation manual, which is available to all employees.

The base salary for this position is $125,000 annually. Total compensation for this position, however, is driven more by our generous incentive plan, which is paid quarterly and about which we can go into detail in the interview process.