Energised by the renewable revolution

ENERGY trader Sam McCoubrey, who left RGS in 2014 to study economics at Heriot-Watt University, feels incredibly lucky.

The former boarding student landed a job in renewable energy, a field he feels passionately about, almost by chance.

“It’s so exciting to me because the progress and development made over the next 15 years will set the foundations for many generations to come. Everything about how we consume and generate energy will have to drastically change if we are to stay thriving on this planet.”

Finding his passion was something that rubbed off on him at RGS, inspired by his three favourite teachers: Mr Spiers (history), Mr Demir (economics) and Mr Margerison (maths).

Sam, who took A-levels in these subjects, explains: “They were huge inspirations to me. Each one of them was incredibly passionate about their subject, I remember thinking how admirable it was to be so knowledgeable about one specific subject.

The keen marathon runner, who aims to run a marathon in every American state, says: “I wasn’t inspired to be a historian, economist or mathematician, I was inspired to put everything into my work to become an expert at whatever I decided to do.”

Initially fearful of graduating without a job, Sam confesses that he applied for around 200 jobs in his final year at university, in everything from finance to accounting and marketing.

Little did he know where his initial job applications would lead: “I didn't know what I wanted to do or what career I wanted. I didn’t want to graduate without a job lined up, anything I could feasibly do with my degree, I was applying for.”

He gained four offers: as an analyst at Citigroup bank, a finance graduate at North Yorkshire County Council, a generalist officer at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office or a placement student at RWE Supply & Trading

“I picked a one-year contract at RWE, a large German utility company. I'm still not sure why I made this decision - I'm glad I did though,” he says.

“I had never heard of energy trading, I didn't even know you could trade energy, but I was immediately excited by the prospect to learn more.

“Within a month, I knew I had found my calling. I loved everything about the energy industry.

“Now I am inspired to create positive change. I know that with my role, the better I am at my job, the more wind farms and solar farms will get built. When I am an old man, I want to be proud of what I contributed to this industry, he says.

“When I sent out so many job applications in so many different industries, I was prepared to fail. I knew that I wouldn't find my passion right away, but I just wanted to start somewhere. I got so lucky that the first job I found, I was incredibly passionate about. “

After his one-year placement was up, Sam was awarded a place on the company’s graduate scheme and after gaining experience in risk, route-to-market solutions and coal trading, he decided to look for jobs in renewable energy.

“The job market in October 2020 wasn't fantastic as we were in the middle of a lockdown, but I was lucky enough to find a position with Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE) as an energy trader in Perth.

“This was a truly awesome experience. I was trading energy for one of the biggest portfolios of renewables in the UK and the traders were some of the most experienced and knowledgeable in the industry, so learning from them was valuable.”

After one-and-a-half years, Sam was approached by the electricity utility company Flexitricity: “This offered me the chance to go from a huge trading team of over 30 traders to a trading team of only three.

“Moving to a smaller team was a great opportunity, the value of your input is so much higher. I loved the added pressure and responsibility.

“After one year in my role I was promoted to trading operations lead, focussing more on trading strategy and overseeing the team’s activities,” Sam explains.

Having been approached by the Canadian power company Boralex, which had just expanded into the UK, Sam was attracted by the idea of change and learning something new and took on the tole of commercial originator, selling power purchasing agreement (PPA) contracts.

“Boralex is a 100 per cent renewable energy company and my job is to help finance the building of wind farms, solar farms and batteries through selling the power on five to 20-year contracts.

“I will approach big corporations such as Google or Microsoft and try to agree a contract where they take all the power from my renewable assets for X number of years.

“Lots of bigger companies are trying to get all their power from renewable sources, which is where I come in, trying to sell them the renewable power from Boralex assets.”

It can be tough, he says: “Sometimes it can take over a year to negotiate a PPA and it can all fall apart at any moment. You can spend countless hours working on a deal and if it falls apart it was all for nothing.

“But I am a people-person. I love meeting new people and talking about something I am passionate about. In my role, one of my key responsibilities is to build a network of utilities and corporates so that when I have a wind farm or solar farm's power to sell, they know who is calling. I enjoy the challenge of building relationships and a strong rapport with people in the industry.”

He adds: “The part of my career that makes me most proud is that I have been able to give back. When I started at RWE, I was incredibly lucky to have some amazing mentors who took time to teach me about the energy industry and the working world. I was fresh out of university and knew so little about how the world really worked,” he says.

“Once I became more established at SSE and then to a much larger extent at Flexitricity, I was able to become a mentor which fills me with so much pride. It is so valuable for everyone to have a mentor and to be a mentor. I was in the position where I knew so little and someone helped me, now I am in a position where I can give back and help someone just starting their career.

“Now, I have mentors who help me navigate different aspects of management and dealing with interactions on a board / executive level. At the same time, I am still able to help those starting out.”

One of the big lessons he passes on is that all the most difficult challenges he faced turned out to be great learning opportunities.

“Understandably, it’s incredibly unlikely that you will be good at your job when you first start out. However, as an energy trader, not being good at your job means losing money. It was hard to stay positive confident when, for the first few months, I was losing money every day. Unfortunately, it wasn't like a switch flipped after a few months, it took so much time before I steadily started to make money. After a while my good days outnumbered my bad days and shortly after that, it was mostly good days.

“In the early days it would have been easy to quit. I'm so glad I didn't because the happiness I take from being good at something that is hard to do is more than worth the pain in the beginning.”

“As far as my work goes, my goal is to keep on going,” he says. “Between now and 2030, the government has huge targets for renewable energy, which is great for me and I will be kept incredibly busy. I know that if I am successful at my job, my team will grow and we can help get more renewables built.”

Outside work, his greatest success has been in marathon running, he says.

“I love running, it has been so good for my mental health and wellbeing. In total I have run 13 marathons, and it is my life goal to run a marathon in every state in America. (six out of 50 completed so far). In April 2024, I ran the New Jersey Marathon then seven days later I ran the Delaware marathon.

“My favourite weekend activity is to go on a long run. I find running quite meditative as you are alone with your thoughts.”

Q: What was the most important lesson you learnt at RGS?

A: RGS is really great at pushing all their students to be confident and passionate about whatever they want to do with their lives. An under-appreciated skill when you're at school is the ability and confidence to speak to adults, ask questions and push for what you want. You will achieve much more at an early age if you have the belief in yourself that you belong and you are a valuable asset. 90% of the time people are willing to help and so much of that help is left unused because people lack the confidence to ask for it, RGS gave me the confidence to speak in a room full of people and ask for help.

Q: What do you miss most about Ripon?

A: I had the best friends at school. We are all very close to this day. The one downside to living in Edinburgh is that I am so far away from them. Whether it was from my teachers or from my friends, I always felt that everyone was rooting for me to be successful in whatever I was doing - this meant a lot to me. I miss the small community feel you get from Ripon. Walking around you bump into old, friendly faces all the time. I hope to move back one day.

Q: What do you wish you’d known back then?

A: I wish someone sat me down and told me that you learn more from failure and rejection than success. Whenever I have been rejected during a job interview, I have taken more away from that than the successful ones. Going through so many job applications at university, dealing with so much rejection gave me a great platform to succeed at later interviews. I have so much confidence now because I know that the worst-case scenario that comes from any interview or sales pitch is that I will learn how to do better next time.

Q: What extra-curricular activities were you involved in while at RGS, both in and out of school, and how valuable were they?

A: I loved playing tennis and swimming. I remember having some awesome matches with Matt Dickinson on the Ripon Grammar courts. In my final year at RGS I was voted to head of School House as well as being a prefect. RGS was really great at supporting whatever you were interested in outside of the curricular schedule. While I was at RGS I got the opportunity to go to places such as Berlin, Vietnam and Cambodia, Wimbledon, France.

Q: What was your dream when you were at school?

A: I have always loved to travel and am very lucky that in my current role I get to travel to some interesting destinations. When I was in my early years at school, I really wanted to be a pilot. My fourth year work experience was at RAF Leeming and I had a fantastic time. However, as I matured I drifted away from wanting to be a pilot and was more drawn to how the world works, discovering more about the fundamental drivers in the economy and what our future will look like.

Q: What is the one piece of advice you’d give students interested in following a similar career path?

A: The energy industry is growing at such a fast pace, all of the big utilities offer fantastic graduate schemes and placement years to get yourself started (EDF, SSE, RWE, Noriker, Shell, BP, Scottish Power). I'm pushing for my company to start a graduate scheme because I think it is so important to get fresh talent.

As more general advice: interviewing and being successful at interviews is such an important skill. Like any skill, it needs work and, in the beginning, you will not be good at it. When you are at school, at university or starting your career, I would encourage you to do as many interviews as possible. Interviews are fantastic because no matter the result, you gain huge benefits. If you get rejected, good, you get feedback and you know what you need to do next time to improve. If you get accepted, fantastic, someone took a look at you and thought you'd be a great fit.

Practising interviews is so important because one day you will have an interview for your dream job, something you want more than anything. If you are well practised at interviews, you put yourself in the best possible position to do great.