Operational Planning Specialist Engineer

About the role

The Operational Planning Specialist Engineer develops short- and medium-term operational plans to ensure continuity of electricity supply, power system security and economical generation dispatch. The role coordinates generation availability, transmission outages, load forecasting and GCC interconnection requirements to keep power system operations reliable and efficient. It is a 12-month position based in Kuwait.

Key responsibilities

• Develop secure and economical operating plans, allocating generation across power plants and generating units.
• Forecast short- and medium-term electricity demand and assess generation capacity needs to meet projected loads.
• Evaluate scheduled outages of transmission assets and generating units, identify system impacts and recommend mitigation measures.
• Coordinate generation energy-availability requirements to support annual maintenance planning.
• Analyze critical network loading conditions and recommend short- and medium-term operational solutions.
• Review and update planned and automatic load-shedding schedules in line with network developments and GCC interconnection requirements.
• Assess substation busbar sectioning strategies and future expansion or connectivity plans from an operational security perspective.
• Conduct operational studies for the GCC Interconnection Grid, analyze interconnection faults and prepare technical reports.
• Work with engineering, operations and management stakeholders to communicate operational risks and recommend corrective actions.

Required profile

• Degree in Electrical Engineering or an equivalent relevant discipline.
• Substantial experience in transmission system operational planning within a power utility or system operator.
• Proven experience in load forecasting, generation availability assessment and outage planning.
• Experience in contingency analysis, network loading assessments and operational studies.
• Understanding of transmission network planning, substation configurations and load-shedding schemes.
• Knowledge of GCC Interconnection Grid operations is highly relevant; experience in the Middle East is preferred.