Product Manager Connection Methodology

Excited to work for a key Belgian player in the energy landscape?

The Belgian and European energy landscape is in full swing. Did you know that Elia Belgium plays a crucial role in this? As part of Elia Group, a European transmission system operator, Elia Belgium ensures the reliability and sustainability of the electricity supply in our country.

Side‑side with your talented colleagues, you will play a part in building a sustainable, green and reliable energy infrastructure that stimulates economic growth and reduces our ecological footprint.

Only together can we make the biggest impact possible We believe in the power of diversity: we are convinced that an inclusive and diverse work environment leads to more innovation, creativity and better results.

Product Manager Connection Methodology

Function

About Elia

Elia develops the electricity grid, the electricity markets, facilitates access to them and establishes ancillary services to ensure a secure, efficient and reliable electricity system. As Belgium’s transmission system operator, Elia is at the forefront of the energy transition: integrating large volumes of renewable energy, enabling electrification of our society, connecting new technologies and designing flexibility solutions that deliver the best outcomes for society.

Within Elia, the System & Client Solutions (SCS) department is responsible for products that make this vision a reality. We design and implement the solutions needed to support the Belgian grid — from enabling both TSO and DSO grid user connections within a context of growing congestion, to developing the ancillary services that ensure system security as the energy landscape transforms. We serve customers, partners, and market parties across Belgium.

About the role

As a product manager, you are responsible for the business solutions within your scope: ensuring that customer and system needs, operational realities, regulatory and legal requirements as well as digital capabilities are translated into coherent and effective solutions.

You report to a Product Lead within SCS and work closely with Product Owners and domain experts. Through regular engagement with internal and external customers and stakeholders, you shape the direction of your solutions and build alignment across Customers, Operations, IT, Regulatory Affairs and other relevant stakeholders.

Context

The growth of battery storage and data centers, combined with the broader electrification of industry and households, is driving connection requests far beyond the grid capacity anticipated in current grid‑development plans. As a result, new connections may be subject to temporary flexibility requirements until the necessary grid reinforcements are completed. Within this context, the applied methodologies and assumptions for grid connection should be closely monitored and adapted where necessary, to ensure a good trade‑off between managing operational risks for Elia and providing grid users with a fair level of grid access. Moreover, candidate Grid Users request greater transparency into the applied methodologies and assumptions behind these flexibility requirements. In response, Elia published its grid connection methodology for the first time.

To help Grid Users identify the most viable connection opportunities, Elia published a hosting‑capacity map. Stakeholders now expect greater transparency about the assumptions underpinning its calculations.

Your role

As Product Manager Connection Methodology, the problem you own is to balance Elia’s operational risks with the flexibility constraints imposed on Grid Users. You provide stakeholders with clear, accessible explanations of the assumptions underpinning these methodologies. You continuously improve the methodologies by responding to changing behaviours, exploring technological and economical opportunities and testing the accuracy of key assumptions. You also integrate broader evolutions that are developed in other product lines into the connection methodologies, such as changes to flexibility products and the implementation of a TOTEX framework. You balance the interests of Grid Users with the broader societal and system impact. You benchmark our approach against those of other TSOs.

You lead stakeholder engagement and work with regulatory authorities to secure the necessary approvals. In partnership with operational departments, you define the strategy, implement the methodologies, ensure that their assumptions adequately reflect operational risks and align with other methodologies (such as the grid development methodologies). You incorporate feedback from Grid Users to identify improvements and coordinate with distribution system operators to ensure a consistent approach to joint calculations.

Your responsibilities

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