The business is a waste to energy and power generation asset in Ireland owned by private institutional investors. It treats residual waste under a long-term public private partnership with a public authority, with several decades remaining on the concession, and exports baseload electricity to the grid.
Operations and maintenance are delivered by a third-party contractor under a long-term operating contract, which has recently been transferred to a new counterparty.
The business is moving to standalone operations under a new ownership structure and is building its own capability with a small senior team.
Role Overview
The Head of Engineering will be a senior engineering appointment in the business and its technical authority for the asset.
The role holds the operator to the technical obligations of the operating contract, protects the condition and remaining life of the plant across the concession term, and gives the board and shareholders a technical view independent of the party being reported on. It owns the relationship with external technical advisors and directs specialist support on major projects and studies, including the Dublin District Heating System.
Health, safety, environmental and quality matters sit with the role on an assurance and audit basis, including robustly challenging the operator’s QHSE plans, performance and controls and holding the operator accountable for addressing deficiencies. Statutory duties for plant operation remain with the operator
The role is based in Dublin with daily on-site presence and reports into the Project Director. This could move to a 4-day-a-week on-site presence in time.
Key Responsibilities
Operator performance and contract management:
- Validate availability, output and operating data
- Chair the weekly technical performance meeting with the operator and maintain the action log
- Assess claims for additional cost, time or relief and advise the Project Director
- Determine operator performance against contract guarantees and any subsequent performance deductions
Plant performance and reliability:
- Investigate trips and unplanned outages, test root causes and verify corrective actions
- Investigate repeat failures, critical spares, boiler fouling, chemical use, defects and warranties
- Monitor waste quality, CV against design limits and quantify the impact of same on plant performance.
Technical advisor and specialist support:
- Own the 3rd party technical advisor relationship; determine what is delivered in house vs externally
- Scope projects and studies, defining deliverables, acceptance criteria, fees and timing
- Challenge advisor outputs and secure reliance letters where required
- Direct specialist thermal, corrosion, electrical, civil and structural studies as required
- Act as owner's engineer from design and tender review through inspection, testing and commissioning
- Manage advisor budgets and invoices; coordinate technical inputs for alternative providers including lenders and insurers
Outages, capital and lifecycle:
- Challenge outage scope, duration and cost; lead readiness, inspections and return to service
- Be the owners lead in capital projects and set the technical assumptions for budgets and the financial model
Health, safety, environment and quality:
- Review and challenge the operator’s health and safety plan, including its development, implementation and continuous improvement
- Review serious incidents and near misses, test investigations and verify corrective actions
- Ensure emissions are licence compliant and respond to inspections and regulatory changes.
Board and stakeholder reporting:
- Deliver board and Project Director reporting with an independent safety, environmental and performance view
- Answer technical questions from shareholders, asset managers, lenders and insurers
- Maintain the technical risk register, escalate under delegation and support statutory reporting
- Oversee the owner's drawings, manuals, change history and inspection records carried out by the operator.
Candidate Profile
Essential:
- Chartered engineer in a relevant discipline, with EHS experience
- Operating-plant experience in energy from waste, biomass or thermal generation, covering moving-grate combustion, boilers, steam, turbines, generators and flue-gas treatment
- Track record of holding third-party operators or maintenance contractors to performance-based contracts
- Experience leading or client-managing major planned outages through to return to service
- Experience directing engineering consultants and capital projects, including scoping, fees and technical challenge
- Able to apply operating contracts, including performance regimes, exclusions and relief events
- Experience of industrial environmental permitting, emissions reporting and safety-system audits
- Able to build an independent performance view from control-system and historian data
- Dublin or Greater Dublin based, with daily on-site presence
Desirable:
- Owner or investor-side experience of a PPP, concession or project-financed asset
- Exposure to district heating, grid connection, ancillary services or a post-separation build-out.