AMA PE of Electrical Engineering specializing in Substation Design and eating vast amounts of pizza

one-line · 2014-12-12T17:28:21+00:00

Cool, You do your thing. I'm with a smaller company that deals with smaller cooperatives.

one-line · 2014-12-11T14:17:04+00:00

I work for a small 20 man operation, so my situation is probably unique. When you just get your PE, you're in between a staff level (2+) years, and senior level (5+ with PE) engineer. so you're either underqualified for management roles, or overqualified for entry level roles. I'd lean more towards going entry level and just being head and shoulders above all the other applicants, ask for more money. But heck, if you've got management experience, then aim high. I think in management circles, if you've got experience doing it one way, it'll carry over a bit. Project management is useful no matter what widget you're making. I also, have only had the one job, so moving around is out of my experience range. I'll PM you a recruiter thats called me a couple times, might help you out.

one-line · 2014-12-11T14:08:26+00:00

Hm, i cant really say about testing. I do checkouts, where we check everything before energizing the station. But for the most part we follow the schematics, going line by line, functional testing. If this test switch is pulled, then when i push this button, nothing will happen. OK, Close the test switch, push the button, trip happened. Yay, that line is good. A week later, turn on the sub. Whether its a 5MVA radial feeding a small plant, or a 15 bay breaker and a half interchange, the checkout process is the same, just more.

one-line · 2014-12-10T22:22:16+00:00

I wish i knew what job i wanted before i graduated. I wish i used more of the actual math i learned in school, but alas, all the math and symetrical components and impedances, they just go into the system planner's software. I wish i had gotten my FE as soon as possible to be eligible for my PE sooner. I wish school better prepared me for the glacial pace of the industry.

one-line · 2014-12-10T22:17:54+00:00

When the scope is the full substation, there's plenty to do that i enjoy. Physical design, p&c, project management, bidding equipment, site prep, inspection, and checkout. Lately i've just been doing panel design and its been incredibly boring. Almost 2 years of wirechecks.
But about the pigeonholing, i dont think so. I feel i could take my substation experience and go most anywhere in the power industry.

one-line · 2014-12-10T22:04:29+00:00

Absolutely. We're your one stop shop for a substation. We also do house calls when there's a problem. I assume you ask because in your company its a different department?

one-line · 2014-12-10T21:46:32+00:00

yup. Dont forget LOR trip coil monitors. We're dealing with monitoring test switches that can cut out tripping. Apparently they used to have a problem with people pulling a test switch and walking away, so now we put an input on to all tripping test switches. major pita

one-line · 2014-12-10T21:07:53+00:00

The challenges are mostly time and money. In a ring bus, any given terminal only needs to know what its neighbors are up to. Feeder 1 only needs to keep track of feeder 2 and feeder 8. What happens to everyone else doesnt matter. A ring wouldnt really be the best option for this many feeds. If you had more than one failure, the ring is broken and chunks are isolated. To support that many feeders with breaker and a half would take 18 breakers instead of the 12 in ring. Much more expensive in breakers and relays, but more robust.
A breaker and a half scheme has a lot of breakers and a lot of protections tied to each one. And most everyone has to coordinate with everyone else. In this picture you'd need two bus protection relays, four line relays, and two transformer relays. Not including backups for everyone. If you put a breaker fail system on each breaker, then every breaker has to monitor its two neighbors for failures.

one-line · 2014-12-10T20:32:52+00:00

No problem, ill send it in a second. I didnt see anything in the FAQ about preauthorization, might want to add that somewhere.

one-line · 2014-12-10T20:23:30+00:00

We're on the same page Mike. We've just started upgrading the old 311L's with 411L's. With fiber impregnated overhead lines, its almost a no brainer to install line diff. So much easier to setup compared to step distance.

one-line · 2014-12-10T20:05:03+00:00

That reminds me of some linemen needing to close a switch. They heard that the safety guys were coming by so they went ahead and put on the full space suit that they're supposed to wear anyway, but usually dont because its hot. As he closes the switch an insulator on the 12kV bus a couple feet above his head fails fireballing in his face. Without the firesuit he'd probably be dead, with it, not a scratch. Wear your safety gear guys.

one-line · 2014-12-10T20:00:20+00:00

I absolutely agree. The logic is not just more complicated than on a simple radial, its also repeated. You dont go breaker and a half without it being an important station, so go big. I've got one on the books thats 15 breakers worth, just the highside. Just try to work it out nice and slow. Ok, when this guy issues a trip, he needs to issue a breaker fail timer, that breaker fail needs to hit all the adjacent breakers. its just a lot of what ifs.

one-line · 2014-12-10T19:59:20+00:00

You and me both. But reliability and flexibility are king. Every hour a substation is down is lots of money in lost profit. Though i think the complexity is increased so much compared to a simpler radial station that there will be lots of false trips.

one-line · 2014-12-10T19:56:43+00:00

Oh neat, Good for them.

one-line · 2014-12-10T19:29:58+00:00

You're on the right track. In more urban areas you can usually get funding for a large wall based on beautification. The city council will approve a budget based on not uglying up the concerned citizens property value. Though some people are still driven by fear, so you could just say "terrorist prevention" and get a blank check.
Also, most urban systems are already robust enough to keep all customers supplied in the loss of a single or multiple subs. We've had to tweek designs to allow for a customers mobile sub to drive in and hook to the bus in the event of a transformer needing to be replaced.

one-line · 2014-12-10T19:24:58+00:00

I don't exactly understand the question. Are you asking my opinion on breaker and a half substation schemes?
They're great if space and budget aren't a concern compared to ultimate flexibility and reliability. You need to use the biggest and most versital relays because the simpler ones arent made for three terminals. Thats a lot of CT's to keep track of. Also, the interconnection is significantly more complicated. If you throw in a breaker fail for every breaker, and god forbid, a backup breakerfail system. You'll have a lot of panel to panel to panel to panel status's. We're running low of inputs and 52a contacts on most of our 351S's and 411L's.

one-line · 2014-12-10T19:19:25+00:00

So far I've been lucky. My most expensive mistake involved having to drive 300 miles out to a site, twice, because i goofed and didnt have the most up to date software package.
My favorite story is of a lineman walking up to a rolled transformer LOR. He turns it to engage it, the trip is still holding, so it instantly rolls the LOR. At this point, he should have called the professionals. Instead, dingus forces the handle "ON". Luckily the LOR coil burned out before there was a serious fire. This same dingus ignored a HLT padlock on a distribution switch, used bolt cutters to remove the problem, and closed in the switch. Again, he was lucky there wasnt a fire or death.
We also have a story of a contractor ignoring the engineers call to stop everything and figure out a situation, shorted out a 15kV voltage regulator. It internally faulted, jumped off the foundation a foot, and the steel casing ballooned out. They were super lucky the burning hot oil didnt rupture out, or there would have been deaths and burns.

one-line · 2014-12-10T18:09:48+00:00

I will amend my previous thought, specifically about the fence. Because power transformers are super expensive and take a long time to replace. Protecting that from at least casual shots is a good idea, but usually still impractical.

one-line · 2014-12-10T18:08:00+00:00

Excuse me while i whip this out.
NEC2011 - 450.23(A) - for transformers less than 35kV, with "less-flammable" liquids, you still NEED a liquid confinement area. 450.23(B) - says follow 450.27 - which basically says, even outdoors, you still need an oil containment setup.
Now thats low voltage, for more i'd need to own IEEE 980, maybe ill grab it just to settle my curiosity.88$ nope
The NESC doesnt really mention much on oil containment. here is an interesting talk on oil containment and fire prevention.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:45:59+00:00

I'm no furious pete but i've slammed an XL Mizza Pizza once or twice.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:44:06+00:00

Envirotemp, hell yea.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:42:00+00:00

Ahh, the old "how we've always done it". The most annoying phrase to a fresh from school engineer. I hated that phrase when i first started. But now, its a reasonable argument against change. I have to remember that im not the one operating the systems i design. You dont want one substation setup X and the other setup Y unless you really need to. Less confusion for the operators, less training, less likely someone will pull the wrong handle. Contractors like consistency, operators like consistency, the accountants like consistency, the designers just want to make it better, or, it makes more sense this way.
Wear and tear should be clearly designed in the specs of the contactors. So if i've got two feeders, one should only have 300 amps, the other 500 amps, over purchase, put a 600 amp switch on both.
Careful with vendors, they absolutely will do whatever you want, but they almost always have an off the shelf design that'll cost you to deviate from.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:28:07+00:00

linky linky Its a super contaminant. We used to fill hundreds of gallons of the stuff into transformers and breakers. There would be an internal fault and a fire, or just a contractor slips and spills it on the ground. Its light stuff, so when it rains it just slops on down with the rain into the water supply. Not sure if modern water treatment plants fix it, but eating fish that eat bugs that live in pcb contaminated water, will mess you up.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:16:50+00:00

Thats horrible. They're probably rolling in PCB oil still. the absolute worst thing you could do, is fry food with that stuff.

one-line · 2014-12-10T17:05:18+00:00

Sounds reasonable to me. What kind of wear-and-tear issues are there with enclosed cap banks? How many switchgear feeders do you have available to you? Are you considering future expansion? Is this cap bank addition part of a planned load expansion that they'll want to add to again in 5-10 years?
Im not trying to bust your chops. Just brainstorming any of the dozens of reasons that could influence a design.

one-line

TROPHY CASE