Trond Ottersland, Head of Consultancy Services Norway at Volue Power Grid, is building a team of consultants to support power grid operators in the green transition. Find out how you can join his team.
Published
Jan 3, 2022
For Trond Ottersland, who has spent the last 10 years working for Volue, the green energy transition is nowhere more evident than in power grid operations.
Three months ago, he became the lead of Volue’s consultancy team working to support power grid operators. The team is responsible for configuring Volue’s off-the-shelf software for Distribution System Operators (DSOs), helping them navigate the green transition.
“DSOs are in need of innovative software that enables them to design, maintain, analyse and monitor the power grid in real-time. Our solutions streamline work processes and help everyone deliver smarter, greener energy,” says Trond Ottersland.
Consultants at Volue focus on delivering systems to the DSOs.
“We are talking about essential network information systems and decision-support systems that the DSOs need related to planning and operating the grid.”
Volue’s software supports three main aspects of the work of DSOs.
“On a daily basis, Volue consultants integrate solutions for grid documentation, planning and analysis of the grid network. They also integrate solutions for outage management and real-time operation of the grid. Last but not least, there are the 'field' solutions for working with inspections and maintenance.”
We deliver essential network information systems and decision-support systems for DSOs to operate the grid.
Trond Ottersland Head of Consultancy Services Norway at Volue Power Grid
On Trond’s team, there are many electrical engineers. However, an interest in IT, in addition to a background in electrical engineering, is a must.
“Volue consultants need to have an interest in scripting and coding. Code development isn’t part of the job but we often need to write code to get the integrations working.”
Going forward, Trond’s team will help more and more power grid companies navigate the green transition.
“How do you operate the grid when solar, wind and other renewable sources come into play? It becomes much more complex to analyse the network. Does the customer need to invest in new transformers, new equipment, or upgrade some network components in order to facilitate the new requirements? Is the network ready? And how do you handle prosumers?”
Data is also a huge part of the task at hand.
“Our systems deliver the data for outage maps. We perform a great deal of analysis of the quality of the data, the load of the power deliveries, and the capacity of the grid to deliver the required power to the customers."
Volue has been a market leader in the Nordics for more than 30 years. Now, the focus is on growing the team.
“We have three teams of consultants, between six and eight people in each team. The consultants work together in the team or on projects across teams. We work on joint projects with teams in Sweden and Denmark, too. We learn from each other, exchange knowledge, and have fun.”
Trond has been working with mapping and geographic information systems for 30 years. In 2018, he started consulting power grid companies, helping them utilise Volue’s mapping solutions and the available data from Volue’s source systems.
“I took the data from our various databases and used that in combination with other data sources to create new and interesting presentations, analyses, reports, and dashboards that support decision-making.”
In his current role, he is focused on building teams.