Distribution Protection Engineer, Energy

Welty Energy is looking for a Distribution Protection Engineer to join our Scoping & Estimating team! Who is Welty Energy? Welty Energy, an affiliate of Welty, is a professional services company specializing in program and project management, transmission line engineering, substation engineering and construction oversight on transmission, substation and distribution projects ranging in voltages from 4kV to 765kV. Headquartered in Akron, OH, and working nationally, Welty Energy currently manages approximately $500 million in construction projects for electric utilities in the Midwest and Northeast regions of the U.S. Position Overview A Distribution Protection Engineer is responsible for performing relay protection functions across the distribution systems. The primary focus is on studying and protecting the distribution lines and distribution substations to ensure safe and reliable operation. Engineers will primarily work on relay protection system designs, setting development and system analyses for the equipment contained within the client’s territories.

Responsibilities include:

• Developing protective relay design specifications for distribution line and substation projects for use by Distribution Engineers in developing construction implementation packages. This includes specifying the types of protection schemes to be employed including specific details on relay models and communication architecture, instrument transformer selection, input and output contact assignments, etc.
• Providing technical support and guidance to develop distribution infrastructure projects, plans and regional budgets to maintain the reliability and integrity of the client’s distribution protection system.
• Preparing protection specifications for new capital projects and system upgrades.
• Proficiency in performing distribution switching and protection studies.
• Supporting operations and maintenance by performing switching studies and preparing settings for mobile substation installations as needed.
• Performing protective device coordination studies for substation transformers and circuit breakers along with circuit protection (fuses and reclosers) as needed.
• Understanding and recommending settings for various regulator and capacitor controls.
• Designing and supporting the installation of distributed control systems including radio controls for line switches and reclosers as well as loop line sectionalizing schemes.
• Performing timely completion of modeling of the distribution system for short circuit calculation, relay modeling and coordination, breaker duty calculations and fault locating ensuring compliance with NERC, RF and Client protection criteria.
• Following established procedures and retaining evidence to support compliance with the various NERC Protection and Control (PRC) Reliability Standards
• Providing staff assistance to management and higher levels of professionals, as needed
• Conducting technical research; Compiling and analyzing moderately complex data; Solving practical problems
• Preparing technical reports and summaries; Making presentations when necessary
• Meeting customer needs by providing sound service and responsiveness.
• Exercising sound decision making by developing alternatives and recommendations to technical work processes

Qualifications include:

• One of the following 3 Educational backgrounds:
• Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from an ABET accredited institution is preferred.
• Alternatively a Professional Engineer’s (PE) License will be acceptable with experience of 7+ years in the industry
• Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Technology from an ABET accredited institution
• Minimum of 2 (two) years of Protection Engineering experience is required.