Trading Analyst Job In Denver Colorado

Summary
Design and perform quantitative analysis to price wholesale energy commodity transactions and quantify and hedge risk. Plan and optimize seasonal, monthly, balance-of-month, and daily resource commitment schedules and portfolio positions to provide the most economic operations of the power system portfolios. Perform post-analysis of actual dispatch and system operations for each of the Xcel power system portfolios to determine opportunities for efficiency improvements. Know and adhere to business rules and understand regulatory regime.

Essential Responsibilities

• Design and perform appropriate quantitative studies of historical and forecasted prices, system loads, fuel costs, determination of the natural position of Xcel's power system portfolios. Supports trading and risk management activities through the quantification of the natural position of each Xcel regulated operating company. "Troubleshoots" the daily operation of Xcel's regulated electric operating companies and provides technical support to Real-time Traders during daily operation of the systems. Assists Fuels in the determination of forward fuel requirements and the daily gas nomination process.
  
• Identify opportunities to improve system operations. Design and create analytical studies to model opportunities and determine costs and savings (e.g. rescheduling plant maintenance, alternative operating strategies for certain resources, etc.). Help plant operations personnel to understand market implications of plant operating decisions. Understands mechanical aspects of power plants and the potential optionality in the various power generation technologies. Understands electrical system constraints and operations.
  
• Create and run modeling scenarios to optimize daily unit commitment, additional purchases and sales, as well as long term energy limited or constrained seasonal purchases. Verifies accuracy of results through extensive post-analysis of Xcel system performance. These analyses include development of short-term load forecasts, current plant/contract availability, fuel costs and market conditions. These analyses result in determination of quantities of energy to buy/sell, optimal scheduling of constrained resources and optimal commitment decisions for plants and contractual resources.
  
• Design and perform post-analysis models of previous day system operation to determine opportunities for dispatch efficiency and purchase/sales improvements. Performs benchmarking of models as appropriate to assure analysis integrity. Verifies accuracy of sales costing when appropriate.
  
• Continuously seek improvements to processes and analyses used for purchasing and selling commodities, scheduling of contracted resources, and commitment and dispatch of Xcel generation assets.
  
• Perform pricing and costing of Real-Time Pricing Program sales and wholesale sales.
  
• Analyze and forecast future market prices at various trading points. Research energy market trends, maintains awareness of energy optimization techniques and tools to support trading contributors. Stays abreast of regulatory requirements. Maintains superior computer skills and continually searches for improved processes. Recommend trading strategies based on technical and fundamental market analysis.

• Bachelor's degree in Engineering, Mathematics, Applied Sciences or related fields

• 4 years experience in electricity industry with 1 year in energy commodity trading operations
• 1 year experience with generation cost modeling software (Prosym, Promod, Couger, or Gentrader)