Performance Lead O&M

Job Description

Project Overview

Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm is a 1080 MW offshore wind farm situated 15 km from the Angus coast in the North Sea. The power it generates will be transmitted 85 km to a new substation at Cockenzie, in East Lothian, before entering the national transmission system. The project is a >£3 billion investment that will significantly contribute to the UK’s carbon emissions reduction targets. Once complete its 72 turbines will generate enough electricity to power almost half the homes in Scotland.

Summary of Assignment

The Performance Lead (O&M) is responsible for the monitoring, analysis, optimisation and assurance of the operational performance across the windfarm during the O&M phase. The role turns operational data into engineering and commercial insight, supporting safe operation, high availability, accurate reporting, improved turbine and balance of plant performance, and long term shareholder value for the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm.

Key Responsibilities

• Lead routine monitoring of turbine and windfarm performance using SCADA, historian, condition monitoring, metering and related operational datasets.
• Validate, cleanse and analyse operational data to identify underperformance, abnormal trends, availability losses, derates, recurring faults and early stage component degradation.
• Perform turbine level and windfarm level performance assessments, including power curve analysis, event analysis, downtime categorisation, loss accounting and reliability trending.
• Distinguish between technical losses, operational constraints, environmental impacts and data quality issues to ensure accurate root cause attribution.
• Support engineering teams with evidence based recommendations to improve turbine, electrical and balance of plant performance.
• Conduct proactive data led analysis to identify opportunities to improve availability, reliability, maintainability and energy yield.
• Track repeat defects, transient issues and degradation patterns, and work with site teams to convert findings into corrective and preventative actions.
• Maintain and improve performance KPIs, dashboards and action registers to support structural improvement plans.
• Contribute to continuous improvement initiatives that reduce forced outages, improve mean time to repair and enhance energy production.
• Support benchmarking of asset performance against expected technical and operational baselines and, where appropriate, against wider fleet or market comparators.
• Own or support the integrity of performance data used for operational, management, contractual and shareholder reporting.
• Develop and maintain robust processes for data validation, exception handling, calculation governance and audit trails.
• Produce regular operational performance reports covering technical availability, production losses, alarms, downtime drivers, energy yield, campaign effectiveness and emerging risks.
• Ensure performance reporting is sufficiently controlled to support internal governance, lender/insurer queries and external contractual interfaces where relevant.
• Challenge data anomalies arising from meter, SCADA systems, historian platforms, reports or interfaces, and coordinate corrective action with technical and commercial stakeholders.
• Work closely with offshore operations, turbine engineering, HV engineering, SCADA/OT and asset management teams to interpret events and prioritise improvement actions.
• Contribute to site meetings by highlighting performance concerns, recommending interventions and tracking action closure.
• Provide analytical support for inspections, serving campaigns, defect elimination plans and major maintenance activities.
• Support operational readiness for new assets, service transitions and in housing activities by ensuring performance tools, processes and reporting frameworks are established and functional.
• Provide concise technical insight to senior management, the Board, shareholders, lenders, insurers and other key stakeholders as required.
• Develop and improve analytical tools, automation workflows, dashboards and models that increase the speed, quality and scale of performance insight.
• Support integration of multiple data sources across SCADA, PI/historian systems, metering, work management systems and commercial reporting tools.
• Improve repeatability and governance of core analytical outputs through standardised methods, version control and documented assumptions.
• Promote adoption of industry leading analytical techniques and digital methods where they improve decision making and asset value.
• Support future digitalisation, predictive maintenance and advanced analytics initiatives.
• Support the validation of data used for revenue critical and compliance related processes, such as generation reporting, metering reconciliation, performance guarantees and market interface submissions.
• Provide analytical support for contractual obligations including, where relevant, PPAs, subsidy/certification processes and system operator interfaces.
• Ensure performance data and associated calculations are accurate, timely and auditable when used for external settlement, claims or compliance purposes.
• Work with commercial and regulatory colleagues to understand how technical performance affects project economics and contractual outcomes.
• Maintain appropriate governance for calculations, KPIs, data sources, assumptions and performance methodologies.
• Escalate material performance risks promptly, including recurring losses, missing or unreliable data, reporting control weaknesses or emerging asset degradation.
• Support incident investigations, warranty or contractor discussions and management of change processes where performance data or analytical conclusions affect decisions.
• Ensure the role’s output remains transparent, reproducible and suitable for audit and assurance purposes.

Location

Around 3 days a week in the Montrose office and 2 days a week WFH.

Skills

• Strong analytical judgement grounded in evidence.
• Ability to convert data into practical engineering action.
• Clear communication from technical teams to Board level.
• High standards of data governance and reporting discipline.
• Commercial awareness of how technical performance drives value.
• Collaborative style across operations, engineering and commercial teams.
• Continuous improvement mindset.

Knowledge

• Experience in operational analysis, performance engineering, reliability engineering, asset analytics or similar work in offshore wind, onshore wind, power generation, utilities or another safety critical industrial environment.
• Experience handling SCADA, historian, metering or condition monitoring datasets.
• Experience identifying underperformance trends, interpreting operational events and supporting corrective action.
• Experience producing structured reports, dashboards and analytical outputs for technical and non technical stakeholders.
• Ability to work effectively across engineering, operations and commercial functions.

Qualifications

• Degree, HND or equivalent higher qualification in Engineering, Physics, Mathematics, Data Analytics, Renewable Energy or a closely related technical discipline.
• Strong analytical grounding in operational data, performance metrics and root cause investigation.

For further information, contact Oscar Martos HR team at Inch Cape offshore wind.

Website: Vacancies – come and work with us! – Offshore Wind Farm – Inch Cape Wind