Mark O’Connor

Mark O’Connor is Connections Director at Queequeg Renewables. He brings almost 40 years of grid and electrical engineering experience to the Queequeg team. Mark plays a vital role, enabling connections to the grid for all our renewable energy projects.

Queequeg’s Connections Director, Mark O’Connor has previously worked as the head of the technical team in a distributed network operator (DNO) looking after grid connection offers, and as acting head of system planning in a DNO, looking after all grid connections, technical analysis, and network reinforcements. He also has operational experience, having worked in a control room at National Grid and as a voting member on numerous industry code panels.

Q

“I love the fact that Queequeg is an enthusiastic, well-driven team of employees with broad experience, that enables vast and meaningful decisions to be made quickly. As for my role, it’s basically an oversight of all things grid: from grid identification, grid issues, grid contracts and more."

Mark O'Connor

Q

What are the key challenges in your role at Queequeg?

A

My role is basically offering the team and all of our various stakeholders an oversight of all things grid: from grid identification, grid issues, grid contracts and more. In terms of common grid issues that I deal with, many of them are about getting the right offer. By this, I mean that a lot of the offers that we will get from a DNO will be something that meets their requirements to fill their license obligations. But it may well not be the best solution for the developer or for the bigger picture. The issues I often deal with are around going beyond the ‘tickbox exercise’ type offers we get from DNOs, and instead getting a proper meaningful solution which can work for us. Unpicking the complexity of grid locations sites and connections to ensure we have viable projects, essentially.

Q

Tell us a little more about your passion for the energy industry?

A

I’m an electrical engineer at heart, so my passion and enthusiasm for the energy and electricity industry is all around electrical grid connections, making the power system work and keeping the lights on. That’s always been my passion and love for the industry.

Q

How does your personality fit within the Queequeg team?

A

I have a passion for sport, I’ve always loved coaching sport. I’ve done loads of youth training and coaching in my time. And I really love helping to develop the future generations of young people, and part of my leadership style is around developing people to help them reach their full potential. I do this through a supportive and nurturing developing style I’ve developed over many years, both in the industry and in my many years of coaching sports. At Queequeg, a lot of my work revolves around educating both junior members of staff and various stakeholders on what the grid is, and how it works.

Link to Gabriella Palla