Power Plant Operations Manager

Mission-Critical Power Plant Operations Manager

Location: Spartanburg, SC 

The Company

Our client is a privately backed organization operating at the forefront of high-performance computing (HPC) and mission-critical infrastructure. The company designs, builds, and operates advanced compute environments that support large-scale research, analytics, simulation, and AI workloads. Its focus is on delivering resilient, highly available infrastructure that enables continuous operation of critical compute platforms.

The Position

The Mission-Critical Power Plant Operations Manager serves as the owner’s senior authority and governance lead for a natural-gas-fired, self-generation power plant that directly supports a High-Performance Compute Center (HPCC).

While day-to-day operations and maintenance are executed by a best-in-class, outsourced O&M service provider, this role retains full owner accountability for operational governance, safety leadership, risk management, regulatory compliance, and assurance of plant performance, reliability, and availability.

This position acts as the primary interface between the owner organization and the power plant O&M provider, ensuring all activities align with enterprise safety standards, operational philosophy, availability targets, and HPCC uptime requirements. The role is peer-level with Mechanical, Electrical, Controls, and Facilities Operations leadership within the HPCC organization.

Key Responsibilities

Owner Oversight & Operational Governance

• Serve as the accountable owner authority for power plant operations and outsourced execution.

• Provide strategic direction, oversight, and performance governance to the O&M service provider.

• Establish and enforce operational expectations, decision authority, and escalation paths.

• Review and approve operating plans, including staffing models, training programs, maintenance strategies, and outage planning.

• Chair or participate in monthly and quarterly operational and performance reviews.

Safety, Risk & Compliance Leadership

• Act as the owner’s safety and risk champion for the power generation program.

• Ensure the O&M provider’s safety program meets or exceeds internal standards, regulatory requirements, and industry best practices.

• Lead or oversee HAZID and HAZOP studies, Job Safety Analyses (JSA), Management of Change (MOC), and programs covering arc-flash, gas safety, confined space, and Lockout/Tagout (LOTO).

• Validate that risk assessments are current, actively used in operations, and embedded in SOPs, MOPs, and EOPs.

• Participate in near-miss reviews, incident investigations, root-cause analyses, and corrective-action tracking.

Performance, Reliability & HPCC Integration

• Ensure the power plant consistently meets HPCC load demand, availability and reliability targets, and start-time and ramp-rate commitments.

• Monitor and validate key performance indicators (KPIs), including forced outage rate, availability, capacity factor, maintenance compliance, and safety performance.

• Provide owner concurrence for major operational decisions that may impact HPCC uptime or redundancy.

• Serve as the power-generation subject matter expert within the broader HPCC Operations & Infrastructure organization.

• Ensure seamless coordination with HPCC electrical distribution, UPS systems, BESS, and load-shedding strategies.

• Support integrated commissioning, island-mode operation, black-start testing, and emergency operating procedures.

• Participate in tabletop exercises and live simulations involving grid loss and contingency events.

Regulatory Interface & External Coordination

• Ensure compliance with all applicable federal, state, and local regulations, including environmental permits, air emissions, and fuel-handling requirements.

• Oversee regulatory inspections and audits in coordination with the O&M provider.

• Review compliance documentation, findings, and corrective-action plans.

Success Measures

• Zero safety incidents or regulatory violations.

• Consistent achievement of power availability, reliability, and performance targets.

• Seamless integration of power plant operations with HPCC electrical and resilience strategies.

• Effective governance of outsourced O&M with clear accountability and performance transparency.

• Recognition as the trusted power operations authority within HPCC leadership.

Requirements

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering (Mechanical, Electrical, Chemical) or equivalent experience.

• 10+ years of power generation experience, with significant exposure to natural-gas-fired generation and critical infrastructure.

• Demonstrated experience governing or overseeing outsourced power plant O&M services.

• Strong working knowledge of gas turbines and/or reciprocating engines, balance-of-plant systems, protection schemes, controls, and plant automation.

• Proven leadership in safety management, hazard identification, and risk mitigation.

• Experience supporting mission-critical or data-center-integrated power plants.

• Familiarity with islanded and black-start capable generation, BESS integration, grid interconnection, and utility coordination.

• Formal training or certification in HAZOP/HAZID, Root Cause Analysis (RCA), and Incident Command or Emergency Response preferred.

• Must be legally authorized to work in the United States without employer sponsorship.