Derek Wodrich

Sr. Project Engineering Manager @ Northern Sun Energy

About

Sr. Project Engineering Manager at Northern Sun Energy, leading utility-scale solar PV projects across the Northeast and Midwest — currently active in New York, Massachusetts, Maine, Illinois, and Kansas. The role is end-to-end: scoping and pricing EPC packages, coordinating with engineers of record, working through interconnection and code compliance, mobilizing contractors, and driving projects from signed PPA through commercial operation. I work across both sides of the table — the engineering review room and the GC trailer — and I like projects that demand someone fluent in both. My approach is opinionated about a few things. Clean design packages that anticipate the field. Budgets that survive the bid table without surprise change orders. Contractors held to their word and rewarded for keeping it. Early civil-and-electrical coordination, conservative interconnection assumptions, and protection / arc-flash decisions made for the year-three operations team rather than the year-one CapEx line. Engineering background from Lakehead University; MBA bridging the technical and commercial sides of project development. Comfortable in NEC / IEEE 1547 / utility-spec conversations and in the financial modeling that ultimately decides whether a project pencils. Always glad to compare notes with developers, engineers, financiers, and contractors working in utility-scale renewables — particularly anyone running a tight EPC ship in the same geographies.

Country

City

Canada

Industry

Food & Beverages

Skill

Solar Energy, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Smartsheet, Renewable Energy Systems, Procore, Renewable Energy, Value Engineering, Value Stream Mapping, Change Management, Order Management, Technical Execution, Problem Solving, Management, Communication, Project Implementation, Construction Safety, Maintenance and Repair, 3D Computer Aided Design (3D CAD), Preventive Maintenance, Plant Maintenance

Experience

Sr. Project Engineering Manager

Northern Sun Energy

2025 - Present · 1 yr

United States

Leading utility-scale solar EPC delivery across a portfolio of ground-mount PV projects in New York, Illinois, and Kansas — owning site management, electrical execution, procurement, contractor coordination, RFI/submittal control, prevailing-wage compliance, and commissioning. Recent and active projects: - Du Quoin, IL — 7.5 MW DC / 5.0 MW AC PV with a co-located 1,050 kVA battery system. Led construction management, project engineering, electrical and mechanical scope, IFC drawing revisions, MV/LV cable schedules, contractor procurement, and the schedule-of-values / billing cadence against developer progress payments. - Grand Island, NY — 4.47 MW DC / 3.45 MW AC, AC-export-capped on National Grid. Drove the project through Stage C protection, witness testing, lift planning, and the IFC issue cycle, while running the three-week look-ahead, weekly construction reports, and EPC SOV. - Currently managing two co-located projects in Waterford, NY (~11.6 MW DC combined on a National Grid feeder), a paired site in Boonville, NY (~10.5 MW DC on a 46 kV sub-transmission tap), and twin projects at Fort Riley, KS (4.2 MW DC each, Evergy territory). On the engineering side, I lead senior EOR review of 60%, 90%, and IFC electrical packages — SLD/three-line consistency, NEC ampacity and EGC sizing, MV cable insulation for sub-transmission taps, transformer/breaker matching, NY PE seal compliance, and ASHRAE-driven Voc(max) recalculation for cold-climate sites. I maintain a project-applicability codes index spanning the federal stack (NEC, IEEE 1547, UL 1741, NESC, ASCE 7) and state-level rules in NY, IL, and KS, and run submittals, RFIs, change orders, and PO trackers in Procore.

Sr. Project Engineering Manager

Nestlé

2018-1 - 2025 · 7 yrs

London, Ontario, Canada

Project Autobahn 4A - 2018 -> 2019 $25.4M - Mechanical Engineering Project Lead Project Autobahn 4B - 2019 -> 2021 $15.8M - Civil Engineering Project Lead Project Pearl - 2022 - 2024 -> $50.2M - Lead Site Engineering Manager (Mech., Structural, Civil)