Myanmar: Distributed Rural Electrification Director

Dec 13, 2021 | Pact
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A nonprofit international development organization founded in 1971, Pact works on the ground in nearly 40 countries to improve the lives of those who are challenged by poverty and marginalization. We serve these communities because we envision a world where everyone owns their future. To do this, we build systemic solutions in partnership with local organizations, businesses, and governments that create sustainable and resilient communities where those we serve are heard, capable, and vibrant. Pact is a recognized global leader in international development. Our staff have a range of expertise in areas including public health, capacity development, governance and civil society, natural resource management, poverty, fragile states, monitoring and evaluation, small-scale and artisanal mining, microfinance and more. This expertise is combined in Pact’s unique integrated approach, which focuses on systemic changes needed to improve people’s lives.

Department

Smart Power Myanmar - Smart Power Myanmar was established to accelerate the spread of decentralised renewable energy (DRE) solutions in Myanmar and transform the long-term economic potential of millions of people currently without access to electricity. Supported by The Rockefeller Foundation and managed by Pact, we connect economically viable and reliable energy solutions, such as renewable energy mini-grids, to demand from rural families, entrepreneurs, farms, and enterprises to boost incomes, grow businesses, and foster economic growth. Smart Power Myanmar is laying the path for a sustainable, integrated approach to electrification in Myanmar.

Position Overview

The Distributed Rural Electrification Director, who will also fulfil the function of Deputy to the CEO, will work with local and international companies and investors, development partners and public sector stakeholders to accelerate access to energy and the growth of productive use enterprises. The Director will lead tailored technical assistance activities with private sector partners on a range of topics such as: site selection, demand prediction, value chain mapping, business performance improvement, and analysis of market dynamics. The Director will also be responsible for exploring, developing and implementing a potential commercial and industrial (C&I) solar strategy. Ideally the Distributed Rural Electrification Director would be located in Yangon, but other viable locations in Asia or within no more than 5 timezones from Yangon will be considered.

Key Responsibilities

Team and Stakeholder Management

• Lead our small team of DRE professionals, and oversee key technical consultants as appropriate.
• Develop and nurture relationships with key private and social sector stakeholders to identify key challenges and opportunities across respective industries, value chains and development impact interventions where energy access is a key bottleneck.
• Support the creation of a multi-sector advisory committee for productive use promotion across donors, agricultural, industrial and service sectors to assist with linkages to other value chain stakeholders, provide visibility across sectors, programs, and initiatives and obtain higher-level buy-in.

DRE Technical Oversight

• Assess and facilitate development of pilot businesses cases and scalable and replicable interventions, practices, business models, and financing instruments with partners including mini-grid operators, project developers, energy companies, and public and social sector stakeholders.
• Improve the viability of the mini-grid business model through improved tools and techniques for site selection, demand prediction and technical assistance for optimising performance improvements for mini-grid projects/portfolios.
• Strengthen DRE portfolio design, governance, delivery and growth and support partners in the co-creation of interventions and solutions that foster offtake of newly available mini-grid electricity and productive use of energy at scale.
• Develop and promote demand stimulation activities in communities to support improved livelihoods and income growth.
• Assess key value chains in the regions and alignment of the value chain actors (input providers, equipment suppliers, market linkages, etc.) to enable developers to optimise the uptake of productive use (this also has knock-on effect for many other development activities).
• Develop an action plan for Technical Advisory support that assists with ‘plugging in’ of various stakeholders along the chain to ensure a sustainable productive use.
• Identify and deploy additional technical advisory support to selected productive use owners, including technical information on the changeover from diesel to electric motors, motor modifications or sizing, linkage with services (finance, equipment, markets), and continued business support to promote sustainability (technical assistance may also be provided to existing productive uses with low load factors to assist with identifying ways in which to increase utilisation).

Strategic Planning and Thought Leadership

• Support and advise the CEO, as well as key stakeholders at The Rockefeller Foundation, on DRE strategy.
• Capture and institutionalise Smart Power Myanmar’s strategy for deploying new business opportunities in a way that is scalable across Myanmar.
• Create a Productive Use Champion(s) that can raise awareness of productive use among developers, communities and/or other stakeholders by providing the necessary productive promotion/marketing training (train the trainer) and market intelligence.

Research, M&E and Communications

• Identify and produce relevant and insightful content (i.e., videos, infographics, case studies, snapshots, investment briefs etc.) and support the development of a broad knowledge and learning platform that raises awareness of Smart Power Myanmar’s services; informs the sector of mini-grid and productive use investment opportunities; informs sector learning and best practices; and showcases the portfolio.

Basic Requirements

• Master’s degree (or higher) in relevant field (e.g., energy, economics, engineering).
• A minimum of ten (10) years of experience leading, designing and/or implementing projects on mini-grid development or off-grid energy technical feasibility studies.
• Experience in energy financial and business modelling and data collection/management.
• Management experience, with skills to analyse and resolve a wide range of problems arising in rural development and electrification. Comfortable with ambiguity and working in challenging environments and virtual teams.
• Previous experience in the power sector is required
• Fluency in written and spoken English. Proven track record working with multicultural and multi-lingual teams.

Preferred Qualifications

• Ability to engage at the CEO and senior operation levels of power companies