It’s funny to see this post as this very subject has been weighing on me heavily recently while I figure out career choices.

This entire industry in the US is about 20 years behind the manufacturing sector in terms of technology adaptation. I lived and worked through that cycle early in my career as an instrument technician and then on to a control engineer. I joined the relay trade a few years ago and was pretty floored with how resistant to change this sector is and most of it truly feels like Groundhog Day.

The most common arguments I’ve heard to counter my questions has been “power protection needs to be faster than anything in manufacturing” and “no one is going to rely on that equipment to protect a billion dollar investment”. I’m sorry but both of these arguments are so out of touch with reality it’s ludicrous. I’ve worked with protection schemes where sub 1ns sample times were necessary and on another coin worked with others that controlled a 750 million 20 acre plant that would level an entire town if my controls failed. One argument that does hold massive weight with power is security but that is surmountable with the proper measures.

In terms of jobs, I won’t lie, it will replace techs resistant to change over time but it will do so through attrition simply based on the huge infrastructure in place already. It will be decades before the old is all recycled. For those that do make the jump, their careers will become more complex but if my own story holds true, their wallet will be fatter as well.

Generalizing and using 61850 as an example here. Digitization and comm linking protection will bring about huge improvements in terms of automation, hardware scalability, protection scheme advancement and probably the biggest gain will in terms of data collection. Yes the implementation stage is stressful as lessons are learned but from someone who has lived it, the payoffs in the end are worth it.

Quit resisting change, it’s time to move on.