Principal Engineer- Protection and Controls

Electric Power Engineers is a leader in power and energy engineering, focusing on innovative solutions for the grid of the future. The Principal Engineer will provide expertise in protection design and coordination analyses on transmission systems, ensuring safety and reliability of the bulk electric system.

Responsibilities:

• Perform system protection and coordination studies involving transmission generation interconnection protection schemes
• Providing guidance and recommendations for system protection philosophies and standards to clients and stakeholders
• Applying system protection engineering practices and principles in one or more of the following areas: transmission lines and buses, transformers, capacitor banks, reactor banks, grounding transformers, generators, and communication-assisted protection schemes
• Performing system modeling and fault analysis for short circuit, equipment duty, relay device coordination studies and root cause analysis
• NERC PRC compliance verification including PRC-005, PRC-019, PRC-023, PRC-024, PRC-025, PRC-026 and PRC-027
• Substation and transmission line design experience is of great interest
• Developing protective relay and device settings for transmission and sub-transmission systems ranging from 69 kV - 500 kV
• Review protective relay operations and system outages, identifying system disturbances and providing resolutions to operational control problems
• Assess data and model quality to ensure successful coordination between protective devices and identify necessary corrections or enhancements
• Direct and guide clients to operate equipment or modify settings to improve system reliability
• Model transmission system elements within planning and operational software to identify expected impacts under various scenarios
• Communicate challenges, lessons learned, and critical information to team members to ensure operational success
• Identify process improvement opportunities and develop corresponding modification plans and justification
• Communicate with a variety of work groups to improve transparency and ensure the overall success of the project
• Develop and maintain process documentation, flow charts, whitepapers, working papers, and other materials necessary for the continuity and success of the project
• Develop communication materials and provide status updates to technical leaders, project teams, or affected stakeholder groups
• Lead process improvement efforts identifying opportunities to enhance organizational efficiencies focused on maximizing team bandwidth while ensuring quality and timeliness of client deliverables
• Support business development activities including development of RFP responses & scope of work statements for clients, outlining EPE deliverables and projected completion dates
• This role will manage/supervise a team

Requirements:

• 8+ years experience in system protection and control required
• Strong technical foundation in transmission power systems protection and planning
• Experience with ASPEN, CAPE, ETAP, Powerbase, SEL Quickset, and GE Enervista UR Setup
• Experience working with SEL equipment, software, and/or developing programming files using SEL Quickset
• Experience with inverter-based power plants is strongly preferred
• Familiarity with ANSI/IEEE guidelines for designing and studies of transmission system protection
• Versatility and ability to adapt to changing priorities
• Licensed Professional Engineer preferred
• Experience with CYME, Synergi, Windmil/LightTable or other distribution power flow software is an add on
• Exposure to transmission protection design guidelines and philosophies is preferred
• Communication and Teamwork skills strongly preferred