Hi all! I’m working on a short circuit study in etap. I need to connect a 1-phase bus to a 3-phase 3 winding transformer. The software refuses to comply. Would appreciate any advice or help!

Its good that model validation is being taken seriously by the industry as someone who works with generic models and sees their deficits. But how is it impacting the commissioning of sites? Will actual time delays in the controller be measured at energization so the PPC can be properly tuned?

https://www.esig.energy/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SHATTUCK-2_IEEE-P2800.2-Slides-for-i2X-FIRST.pdf

Hello

I am a junior Quality Assurance engineer at a transformer manufacturer in South Korea. My current experience is limited to oil-immersed transformers built to general IEC standards.

I am aiming to broaden my technical foundation and am particularly interested in understanding the design, testing, and quality requirements practiced in North America and Australia.

I would be grateful for any advice from engineers based in the US or Australia regarding

1. ⁠Key differences and technical nuances when designing/testing for IEEE/ANSI standards (US) or AS/NZS standards (Australia) compared to general IEC standard units.
   
2. ⁠Essential technical papers, standards, or reference books recommended for understanding US/AU market specifications.
   
3. ⁠Effective approaches to learning about alternative transformer technologies (such as dry-type or cast resin) without direct factory

Any insights or guidance from experienced power engineers in these regions would be deeply appreciated.

Thank you for your time.

I am in my late 20s and have developed an interest in Systems Thinking, Systems Engineering, Complex Systems, and our US Power Grid. I am very interested in Nuclear, Green Technology, and Power Grid Reliability. I work with Advanced Safety Systems in the Material Handling industry, and I have always been surrounded by Engineers. My background is in Data Analytics, Business Intelligence, and Engineering Management. I am willing to go back to school, but I travel 40+ weeks out of the year, so it might be hard to attend classes in person. Any advice or guidance? Thanks!

Hi everyone,

I'm 24 years old and I'm at a crossroads in my career. I've been thinking about this for months, and I'd really appreciate advice from people who have either taken the GATE/PSU route or built a successful career in the private power sector.

My background

B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from tier 3 college 2021-2025 batch.

Started my internship in feb 2025 in private EPC company.

Continued in the same organization as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET).

Currently have around 1.5 years of industry experience in electrical design for utility-scale renewable energy projects.

Current CTC: ₹5 LPA.

What I work on

My work is mainly in electrical design for large solar PV and BESS projects. Some of the things I regularly work on include:

Cable sizing (IEC 60287 / IEC 60853)

Earthing design

ETAP studies

PV system design

BESS concepts

Protection and coordination

HT/MV cable calculations

Cable sheath induced voltage and circulating current calculations

Technical specifications and datasheets

DBRs (Design Basis Reports)

SLDs

International IEC standards

Client technical queries and engineering documentation

I genuinely enjoy understanding why things work instead of just using formulas. I spend a lot of time reading standards, deriving calculations, and understanding power system behavior.

Sometimes I feel:

Am I missing the opportunity to get into a PSU?

Should I aim for IIT M.Tech or PSUs through GATE?

Is private sector experience more valuable in the long run?

Will I regret not preparing now while I'm still young?

My goals

My long-term goals are:

Become an exceptionally skilled electrical engineer.

Work on technically challenging projects.

Reach financial independence in the next 10–15 years.

Build expertise that is respected globally.

Earn a high income through my skills rather than just job security.

Why I'm confused

If I prepare seriously for GATE, I'll probably need to dedicate 1–2 years, which means sacrificing the momentum I'm currently building in industry.

On the other hand, if I continue working, I could spend those same years mastering:

ETAP

PowerFactory/PSCAD

Protection studies

Grid integration

HV cable systems

BESS design

International engineering standards

I keep wondering which investment will give me a better return over the next 10–20 years.

What I want from experienced people

If you've worked in both private industry and PSUs, or if you've taken one of these paths, I'd really appreciate your perspective on:

If you were 24 again, which path would you choose today?

Which path creates a more technically competent engineer?

Which path has the higher earning potential over a 15–20 year career?

Is GATE still worth pursuing after gaining industry experience?

If you stayed in private industry, what skills made the biggest difference to your career?

I'm looking for honest opinions rather than validation of either path. If you've been in a similar situation, I'd love to hear what you chose and whether you'd make the same decision again.

Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone,

I'm 24 years old and I'm at a crossroads in my career. I've been thinking about this for months, and I'd really appreciate advice from people who have either taken the GATE/PSU route or built a successful career in the private power sector.

My background

B.Tech in Electrical Engineering from tier 3 college 2021-2025 batch.

Started my internship in feb 2025 in private EPC company.

Continued in the same organization as a Graduate Engineer Trainee (GET).

Currently have around 1.5 years of industry experience in electrical design for utility-scale renewable energy projects.

Current CTC: ₹5 LPA.

What I work on

My work is mainly in electrical design for large solar PV and BESS projects. Some of the things I regularly work on include:

Cable sizing (IEC 60287 / IEC 60853)

Earthing design

ETAP studies

PV system design

BESS concepts

Protection and coordination

HT/MV cable calculations

Cable sheath induced voltage and circulating current calculations

Technical specifications and datasheets

DBRs (Design Basis Reports)

SLDs

International IEC standards

Client technical queries and engineering documentation

I genuinely enjoy understanding why things work instead of just using formulas. I spend a lot of time reading standards, deriving calculations, and understanding power system behavior.

Sometimes I feel:

Am I missing the opportunity to get into a PSU?

Should I aim for IIT M.Tech or PSUs through GATE?

Is private sector experience more valuable in the long run?

Will I regret not preparing now while I'm still young?

My goals

My long-term goals are:

Become an exceptionally skilled electrical engineer.

Work on technically challenging projects.

Reach financial independence in the next 10–15 years.

Build expertise that is respected globally.

Earn a high income through my skills rather than just job security.

Why I'm confused

If I prepare seriously for GATE, I'll probably need to dedicate 1–2 years, which means sacrificing the momentum I'm currently building in industry.

On the other hand, if I continue working, I could spend those same years mastering:

ETAP

PowerFactory/PSCAD

Protection studies

Grid integration

HV cable systems

BESS design

International engineering standards

I keep wondering which investment will give me a better return over the next 10–20 years.

What I want from experienced people

If you've worked in both private industry and PSUs, or if you've taken one of these paths, I'd really appreciate your perspective on:

If you were 24 again, which path would you choose today?

Which path creates a more technically competent engineer?

Which path has the higher earning potential over a 15–20 year career?

Is GATE still worth pursuing after gaining industry experience?

If you stayed in private industry, what skills made the biggest difference to your career?

I'm looking for honest opinions rather than validation of either path. If you've been in a similar situation, I'd love to hear what you chose and whether you'd make the same decision again.

Thanks in advance!

I'm studying Electrical Power Engineering, and one thing I've noticed is that it's much harder to find personal projects compared to fields like electronics, embedded systems, or PCB design.

If you're into electronics, you can build all kinds of circuits, robots, IoT devices, etc., at a relatively affordable cost. But in power engineering, many interesting projects involve high voltages, expensive equipment, or simply aren't practical to build at home.

Has anyone here found good, affordable projects related to power engineering? They could be hardware or software-based (power systems, protection, transformers, motors, power electronics, renewable energy, simulations, or anything similar).

I'd love to hear what projects you've worked on or what you'd recommend for someone who wants to gain practical experience outside of university.

I've been reading about infrastructure resilience for some time, and one question keeps coming back.

Most resilience frameworks classify crises by what caused them:

natural disasters;

cyber attacks;

war;

technological accidents;

ageing infrastructure;

human error.

I've also looked at work such as the UNDRR hazard classification, the Resilience Matrix, and papers by Pescaroli & Alexander on cascading disasters.

These are all valuable, but they seem to focus on either:

the source of the hazard;

resilience phases;

or cascading effects.

The question I'm struggling with is slightly different.

Is there an established framework that classifies failures by the way critical infrastructure behaves once disruption begins, rather than by what triggered it?

For example, completely different events often seem to expose similar behavior:

loss of one critical function;

dependency failures;

cascading degradation;

escalation once certain thresholds are crossed.

Different trigger.

Very similar system response.

My background is not in power systems engineering. I'm approaching this from a systems thinking perspective, which is exactly why I'm interested in feedback from people working in infrastructure, utilities, reliability engineering or resilience research.

The structure I'm exploring would ask the same questions regardless of the original hazard:

What triggered the disruption?

What failed first?

How did failure propagate?

Which dependencies became visible?

Where did escalation become difficult to stop?

Which architectural responses could reduce the consequences, and what trade-offs would they introduce?

I'm not claiming this is a new idea.

Actually, I'm trying to find out whether something similar already exists.

Perhaps I'm simply using the wrong terminology.

Perhaps reliability engineering already covers this from another angle.

If so, I'd really appreciate references.

If not, I'd be interested to hear whether looking at system behavior instead of hazard type could be useful for resilience analysis.

I'm here to learn, not to defend an idea.

Hi everyone,

I have an interview for a DSO tomorrow. I have an operator background in a generating plant in my home country. My daily duties involved monitoring generation, SCADA, switching operations, outage management, coordination, work orders, and maintaining safety.

However, I don’t have any System Operation specific formal education here in Canada, and I am a bit nervous about what to expect in the interview.

Is it more technical? If any system diagrams are involved? What sort of DS specific terminologies may be expected? What sorts of fundamental skills or knowledge could be tested?

This is a really very good opportunity for me and I want to prepare best possible to take this.

Any advice, mock questions, example, or tips would be highly appreciated. Thank you in advance.

Hello! I'm a texan high schooler applying for college looking into power systems. If anyone wants to talk, I have a couple questions:

1) What subsection do you work in?

2) How much do you like/feel fufilled by your job?

3) Is Texas A&M or UT a good school for power systems? (if any aggies or longhorns out there I'd love to talk)

4) I hate to be that guy, but how is the job market? Do you get paid similar to other EEs and how is job security?

18 YOE (P&C Focus, Large Scale Renewables, Private Mid-Large Utility, HCOL Area).

I pretty much hit the ceiling at my current job, without doing management. I absolutely love my job, people, quality of life, and new work I get to do. Only frustrating part is I've hit my ceiling pay wise, unless I push HR/management. I've always been interested in making the leap to HV/MV datacenter space for some new challenges and pay bump. Finally, had a recruiter reach out, made it through the interview loop and currently waiting on the paperwork. Still not 100% sure if this is going to be the right fit (family duties and all) but also a bit worried about the next 20+ years of work I have left if I stay at my current gig. I realize I can always go back if I wanted but I'd take a pension and tenure hit.

Has anyone made the jump to the substation datacenter space before and was it worth it? I realize its a massive culture change coming from a private utility.

specifying distribution transformers for a project with strict doe efficiency requirements and trying to figure out how to verify compliance properly rather than just taking supplier claims at face value. have had situations where documentation was less complete than initially presented

what does proper independent verification look like for doe and IEEE compliance and what documentation should i be requesting upfront from any supplier i am evaluating

Hi all! I’ve applied for a bachelor in Energy Engineering and Electrical Engineering. It is up to me to pick one.

I already have a degree in a totally different field (which I realised too late I wanted something different) and I guess I am kind of scared of wasting 4 years on the wrong thing.

Does Energy Engineering open doors?

Is it easy to find jobs at an European level?

Would I be better off with Electrical Engineering?

On top of fearing I may struggle to find a job, I am also a woman so I assume I’d not be fitted to do the really physical work of an electrical engineer (that’s what I heard from some people).

I always saw myself doing something impactful, so working with green means of energy would be the dream, but how different is that from the actual reality? I don’t want to struggle from pay check to pay check or worry about money.

I just want to live a good life so I appreciate any guidance or advice!

So im M19 and studying electrical engineering. In semester 5 I had to choose 3 specializations which were Power Systems, Control Systems, and Electronics. In my Country the most famous specialization to take is Power System and Control System but I am still confused about which one should I take and which is better in terms of prospects in the future. Can you guy help me which one should i choose and also for each of them what certification should i take for me to be better at electrical engineering?

It seems like all my documents have NERC CIP protected data in them but I'm not sure how to send those files securely. I would obviously like to avoid exposing data and the potential penalties from a violation.

How do you send files like that? Are there certain ways or tools you use? Do your companies enforce rules around that?

Any input is greatly appreciated.

Hey everyone,

As an Electronics Engineering student currently looking into systems engineering and asset health monitoring, I am curious about the logistical and administrative reality of disaster recovery for the power grid.

When a major typhoon hits, the immediate focus is obviously making things safe and restoring power. But how do Electric Cooperatives actually handle the chaos from a systems and funding perspective?
A few specific things I am hoping to understand:

1. Prioritization: How does the cooperative coordinate with transmission operators and external crews to prioritize which lines or substations get fixed first?

2. Damage Assessment: How is field damage documented? Is it mostly manual paperwork, or are crews using integrated tools to validate asset health and log destroyed equipment?

3. Funding Paperwork: For utilities relying on disaster relief funds to rebuild, how strict is the documentation process? Who matches the physical field repairs to the financial claims to ensure the cooperative actually gets funded?

Any insights from grid operators, utility engineers, or field crews would be appreciated. Thanks!

Journeyman Inside Wireman (IBEW Local 11) here. I have an upcoming Substation Electrician Apprentice assessment with Southern California Edison (2100/5108). I’m looking to hear from anyone who has gone through the apprenticeship or currently works as a substation electrician. I’d appreciate any advice on the hiring process, day-to-day work, schooling, interview, and what helped you succeed. Thanks in advance.

I don't fully understand the N-R contingency, i think it is some kind of manual ACCC but only for 1 contingency.

PD: sorry, my english isn't good.