Energy & Carbon Analyst

Pure Leapfrog

Pure Leapfrog is an established sustainability and decarbonisation charity that works nationally across Carbon, Energy, Buildings & Retrofit, People & Place, Sustainable Finance, and Natural Capital. We are committed to helping support a Just Transition to a net-zero and nature-rich society. We use our combined skills in energy systems, project development, policy & regulation, financial & energy modelling, technology, social impact, carbon, finance and various markets to effect positive change.

Role Purpose & Key Responsibilities

You will be part of Pure Leapfrog’s Community Energy and Carbon & Nature teams, contributing to our community energy & grant funded innovation projects. A key part of your role will be helping to deliver all elements of community energy feasibility studies, develop, design & refine new models for community energy and to work on our innovation project; Community-Led Flexibility Microgrids.

Our Community-Led Flexibility Microgrids model supports community energy groups to increase profitability of electricity generation, offer lower bills to residents, and make it more cost effective to fully utilise local opportunities for renewable energy (such as roof space for solar PV) by improving income earned from community sales of energy rather than exporting excess energy to the grid at lower otherwise prices. Making full use of renewable energy opportunities will accelerate the shift to a zero-carbon electricity supply, while lower bills will help individual households, and improved profitability from community energy assets will boost community benefit funding pots associated with such schemes.

Our Community-Led Flexibility Microgrids project is funded by the Energy Savings Trust’s Energy Redress Scheme. It comprises eleven deliverables across six key workstreams including technical, structural, financial, legal, operational and integration.

You will work closely with our partners on the project and build relationships with relevant stakeholders including communities fit for demonstration who we can bring on the journey of the project with us. You will identify and attend events to spread the word about our project in order to recruit communities and stakeholders.

You will research and support the development of technical methodologies, models and processes required to deliver Community-Led Flexibility Microgrids. You will help design & deliver a pilot ready solution and its implementation requirements into communities. You will work to support and build on our relationship with our funders, attending project meetings and supporting reporting as set out by our grant.

Your other main area of work during this term will be on our wider portfolio of community energy work, supporting our Community Energy Manager & Senior Energy & Carbon Analyst to deliver our range of projects, particularly those funded by the Great British Energy Community Energy Fund (GBCEF).

We are actively expanding our portfolio of projects and services, so beyond this fixed term, we may offer a contract extension to work on project delivery across themes of Carbon, Energy, Buildings & Retrofit, People & Place, Sustainable Finance, and Natural Capital.

Duties

You will work with your line manager to manage priorities and to balance the different parts of your role within the time available. Some aspects of your role may not always be present in your day-to-day work. Specific duties will arise from such discussions and may change from time to time.

Ongoing/day to day duties will include:

• Contributing directly to project deliverables on the Community-Led Flexibility Microgrids project, the wider community energy projects and any other identified projects as required,
• Working with the Community Energy Manager & Senior Energy & Carbon Analyst to secure projects’ deliverables, risk management, strategic aims, claims and funder satisfaction,
• Working with internal and external project partners to secure overall project successes,
• Identify, organise and take part in engagement events and activities with project communities to support the project delivery.
• Support the team to maintain strategic partnerships within the project communities.
• Contribute to the wider debate and collaboration within the organisation about transition, carbon projects, renewable energy and low carbon technologies, policy and regulation, net zero, and social impact.
• Any other duties that may be reasonably expected in the delivery of this role.
• Any other duties to support the wider organisation as may be reasonably requested from time to time.

Person Specification

This role is embedded in our Community Energy team in tandem with our innovation work. We will be designing and trialling new technical and commercial solutions that will contribute towards the transition to net zero. You will need be ready to meet unknowns and work with the team to overcome them.

As your role will be research and stakeholder-facing, you must be comfortable meeting and interacting with a range of people and working both remotely and outside of an office environment.

If you like sharing the knowledge you have and learning new things, then this role is for you. We welcome applications from anyone who feels qualified to apply and is interested in doing so.

We particularly encourage anyone who might be returning to work, is switching career, requires flexible working or job share, has additional needs, or in some other way may generally feel excluded from this kind of opportunity, to make an application.

It is essential that:

• You have a degree, or significant career experience, in a subject that is relevant to this role and our mission – such as Ecology, Sustainability, Climate Science, Energy Systems etc.
• You have excellent interpersonal skills and are able to deliver positive interactions with all stakeholders.
• You are skilled at understanding complex concepts and explaining them in an easily understandable manner for non-experts.
• You are passionate about environmental sustainability and addressing climate change.
• You can demonstrate an awareness of the importance of decarbonising the electricity grid in support of the fight against climate change.
• You enjoy contributing to developing new solutions and approaches challenges.
• You are self-starting, can work remotely as part of a distributed team, and that you have effective communication skills: verbal and written.
• You have strong IT skills, including Excel, Word and PowerPoint and you are comfortable learning to use new IT solutions.
• You are organised, methodical, have an attention to detail, and take pride in your work.

It is desirable that:

• You have technical expertise in Energy generation, energy systems, policy and regulation, energy management and markets.
• You have previous experience within a research, design and development role.
• You have insight into the wider energy system, and the challenges to decarbonise the grid, transport and heating.
• You have an interest in innovation and behaviour change.
• You understand what social impact is and have an understanding of issues such as fuel poverty, economic deprivation and exclusion.

Our culture

The Pure Leapfrog group is committed to being a socially and environmentally impactful organisation. We value our team, our communities and the organisations we work with and seek to treat them with respect.

You’ll join a passionate and growing team that holds a historic place in the UK’s community energy movement. This is an opportunity to shape impactful local energy projects, support real community ownership, and help drive the transition to a fair and sustainable energy future.

Fixed term until June 2028