Mgr, Interconnections Planning & Policy

JOB TITLE

Manager, Interconnections Planning & Policy

LOCATION

Atlanta, GA

POSITION SUMMARY

At Georgia Power, we are making historic investments to support unprecedented load growth while maintaining a clean, safe, reliable, and affordable electric system. The Manager, Interconnections Planning & Policy is a strategic leadership role responsible for the end‑to‑end integration of generation onto the Georgia Power system, including distribution- and transmission-connected generation resources across all technology types such as gas, renewables, battery storage, and others. The scale, complexity, and speed of integrating these generation assets continues to increase to support Georgia’s clean, safe, reliable, and affordable growth.  For the Transmission team, direct responsibility for origination and partnerships with other Transmission teams for the direct interconnection and upstream delivery projects.  This includes capital budget approvals for initial scoping and COD, final design, support through construction, and true-up accounting at closeout.

This position leads other people-leaders and several highly-technical, industry subject matter experts. This role is responsible for leading the strategy and development of solutions that proactively enable the safe, reliable, affordable, and timely interconnection of generation assets to the grid. Additionally, this position will ensure compliance with federal and state regulatory policies including engagement with Public Service Commissioners and Public Service Commission Staff as well as other stakeholders such as generation developers. To be most effective, this manager will coordinate across a wide range of Southern Company’s enterprise functions including but not limited to Transmission, Distribution, Generation, Renewables, Resource Planning, Policy & Services, Compliance, Operations, Legal, and Customer organizations. The role serves as a single point of accountability for Georgia Power’s interconnection policies, processes, and execution to ensure Georgia continues to reliably grow capacity resources to meet increasing customer growth.

KEY RESPONSIBILITIES

This position will have responsibilities across four primary focus areas.

1. Strategic Vision for Interconnections Processes and Strategy

• Own generation interconnections strategy, governance, and enterprise accountability, including clear escalation paths and readiness criteria.

• Lead cross-functional alignment and communication across Southern Company functions and with external stakeholders to coordinate cradle-to-grave solutions development and execution for all generation interconnections to protect grid reliability.

• Set the strategy for interconnections policy and process needs to enable compliance through continued successful interconnection of all types of generation assets to the grid, including opportunities to integrate technologies and analytics into work practices.

• Through close coordination with enterprise partner organizations and external stakeholders, identify and execute opportunities to ensure timely, reliable, and accurate project solution identification and reduce delays and risk of project scope changes. Some partner organizations include Transmission, Distribution, Planning, Generation, Policy & Services, Compliance, Operations, and Customer organizations.

1. Transmission Interconnections

• Provide the strategy and direction for transmission interconnections leadership in concert with partner organizations and ensure senior leaders remain informed and provide input as needed, including executives.

• There have been and continue to be numerous RFPs to procure generation capacity resources that increase generation in Georgia. Given Georgia’s growth, these RFPs continue to develop at a faster pace and with increasing scope. In 2025, Georgia Power certified nearly 10GW of capacity resources with the Public Service Commission and currently has another capacity RFP to procure between 2-6 GW of new generation. These are some of the largest but not the only RFPs the transmission interconnections team is responsible for studying and shepherding through the project and interconnection lifecycle processes.

• RFPs to procure capacity resources through transmission-connected generation will not only serve to meet the growing energy demands of Georgia but also the retirement/replacement strategy for existing generation assets in the future.

• Continue to inform and coordinate with large load interconnections process and the development of projects to ensure consistency with transmission interconnections policies as well as project engineering and cost allocation methodologies.

1. Distribution Interconnections

• Provide the strategy and direction for distribution interconnections leadership in concert with partner organizations and ensure senior leaders remain informed and provide input as needed, including executives.

• There are a growing number of DER assets and technology types seeking to interconnect to the grid. Focus should continue to be placed on ensuring appropriate policies, study capabilities, and methodologies to evaluate these requests to not lose sight of our core principles of safety, reliability, cost, and customer satisfaction.

• Lead strategy to address the increasing complexity of distribution interconnections. For example, adding battery storage to solar distributed generation projects changes the interconnection considerations, and enabling DERMS to allow inverters and customer controls requires additional coordination. Successful implementation of BTM and Customer DER programs requires a balanced approach of support to ensure our customers are protected from a safety, affordability, and reliability perspective.

1. Policy Leadership and Stakeholder Engagement

• Represent Georgia Power and Southern Company professionally with customers, regulators, industry groups, and external stakeholders.

• Regular communications and coordination with senior leaders at Georgia Power and Southern Company, including executives.

• Own compliance and governance for all interconnections projects to comply with Southern Company, Georgia Power, and other regulatory or industry interconnection requirements and other applicable planning/operational requirements prior to energization. Provide guidance on behalf of Georgia Power as needed.

• Provide ongoing regulatory support and develop positive relationships with the Georgia Public Service Commission through interactions with Commissioners, Commission Staff, and direct participation in other stakeholder requests such as the Distributed Generation Working Group to represent interconnection issues and requirements. Also serve as an interconnections subject matter expert to support other regulatory proceedings or legislative issues as needed such as the IRP and Rate Case filings or potential proposed legislation.

• Drive continuous improvement by identifying systemic gaps, lessons learned, and opportunities to continue enabling Georgia’s growth in a reliable, safe, and affordable manner and strengthen grid readiness.

QUALIFICATIONS

• Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Business, or a related field.
• 10+ years of experience in the energy sector, utilities, infrastructure, or large‑scale project delivery.
• 3+ years of people leadership or team management experience.
• 2+ years as a leader-of-leaders is a plus.
• Demonstrated experience coordinating complex, enterprise & cross-functional initiatives with significant safety and reliability implications.
• Strong understanding of transmission and distribution systems, grid operations, and generation interconnection processes and requirements.
• Experience with regulatory policies in the energy industry is preferred.

SKILLS, ABILITIES & LEADERSHIP ATTRIBUTES

• Strong focus on safety with preferred field experience in transmission and distribution, control/communication schemes, legal/contracts, knowledge of DER capabilities, and regulatory policy.
• Creativity and strategy development, ability to lead evolving requirements, building a strong learning culture that is not afraid to make mistakes and learn quickly, and comfortable in working in a fast-changing environment.
• Proven ability to lead teams, develop strategy, and execute in a highly regulated, safety‑critical environment to balance customer growth with grid reliability and compliance.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, capable of engaging executives, technical teams, and external stakeholders.
• Ability to build consensus, manage conflict, and drive decisions across organizational boundaries.
• High judgment, accountability, and comfort operating with ambiguity during rapid growth.

LEADERSHIP EXPECTATIONS

This role is expected to consistently demonstrate Southern Company leadership behaviors, including:

• Safety & Integrity – Enforces technical standards without compromise.
• One Team – Coordinates seamlessly across organizations to deliver outcomes.
• Operational Excellence – Brings discipline and rigor to large load execution.
• Customer & Community Focus – Enables growth while protecting reliability and affordability.