Can ERCOT’s wholesale markets reliably coordinate the production and flow of electricity across the transmission system, foster competition among market participants, deliver reasonable prices, and keep the lights on? At Potomac Economics, as part of the ERCOT Independent Market Monitor, you will play a critical role in ensuring these goals are met. You’ll join a dedicated market monitoring team that evaluates the performance of ERCOT’s competitive electricity markets. 

What you will do:

• Use advanced monitoring tools to assess market efficiency and reliability. 
• Identify opportunities to improve ERCOT’s market design and operations and develop economic solutions to these issues. 
• Detect and investigate potential market manipulation or the exercise of market power. 

Why this matters:

Your work helps safeguard the integrity of ERCOT’s wholesale electricity markets, ensuring competition and reliable service for millions of Texans.

• Conduct economic analyses of wholesale electricity market outcomes to assess competitiveness, efficiency, and reliability. 
• Apply economic theory to develop recommendations for market rule changes and to evaluate proposed changes to market rules. This may be applied to new or existing wholesale electricity products, competitiveness and the exercise of market power, and market manipulation. 
• Design and perform statistical and economic analyses to evaluate market performance and identify areas for improvement in market design. 
• Develop efficient python code to process, analyze, and visualize large electricity market datasets. 
• Summarize and communicate analytical findings clearly to both technical and non-technical audiences. 
• Work productively and independently while contributing to team goals. 

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Required

• Master’s degree in Economics, Operations Research, or another relevant field of study. 
• 3 or more years of experience conducting quantitative or economic analyses, preferably in energy or electricity markets. 
• Strong analytical and empirical skills, with attention to accuracy and reproducibility. 
• Understanding of energy markets, including market structure, pricing, and competition dynamics. 
• Strong technical writing skills. 

Preferred

• Experience evaluating or designing wholesale electricity market rules, pricing mechanisms, or market power mitigation measures. 
• 3 or more years of experience with data analysis and programming experience in Python. 
• Experience with large energy market datasets (e.g., from ISO/RTOs). 
• Knowledge of energy market design. 
• Familiarity with optimization modeling (e.g., linear programming, mixed integer programming, etc) 
• Familiarity with tools such as NumPy, Matplotlib, and Plotly. 
• Interest and ability to use modern AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, GitHub Copilot) to enhance coding, data analysis, and workflow efficiency.