The True Value of a New Power Engineering Grad

View of an ETAP lab

Many of us can remember the feeling of being a young engineer, or even worse, a new graduate without real engineering experience and without a job. This feeling is very prevalent in today’s new graduates. They are graduating at a time when many companies cannot afford to bring in new people because of the state of the economy.

Almost every job posting states a requirement for 3 years of experience or more, which means many new graduates have the same frustrating thought: “How do I get 3 years of experience if no one is looking for a person without experience?”

Well, the good news is that demand for a new age Power Engineer graduate is emerging, one that carries a different weight to many companies looking to bring in the bright new young minds of this world.

While many people can get confused with just operating a remote control for a TV, young engineers see and accept technological advancements as one of their primary reasons to exist.  So they picked their college of choice very carefully, preferring one that taught and used real world applications. Many universities understand this and are standardizing on ETAP Power Labs as a means to educate students.

ETAP is a power engineering software that has changed the expectations and efficiency in which power system analysis is done.   Many young engineers are thus graduating with the knowledge of utilizing ETAP for power system analysis.

After graduation, on-the-job training is not needed for them since they spent 4 years going through classes that teach load flow analysis with a power flow software or short circuit analysis with a short circuit software. As many companies see the benefit of hiring graduates with ETAP experience and accept this change in culture, we can easily see the new requirement on job descriptions will no longer be 3 years or more; the new requirement is “Experience with ETAP.”

5 Tips For A Successful Library Addition

5 tips for a successful library addition

1) Research, Research, Research
Research is the most important step in the library addition process. Manufacturer’s enhance their products periodically, so make sure the catalogue number of the data sheet that you have actually belongs to the device (ex: Low Voltage Breaker) you plan to add. Contact the manufacturer to verify this information.

2) Know what you want
Before you get started, take a minute and ask yourself a few questions.

• Does the specific ETAP module that I’m running with my study need all this data?
  Each module requires its own set of data. Load flow will only require the Rated Ampere of a breaker to be included in the study in order to get an overload alert, but not its Time-Current Characteristic  (TCC) curve. If you are running Arc Flash Analysis, you won’t need a breaker’s data, but you will definitely need the breaker’s TCC curves as per the introduction of section 4 of IEEE Std 1584-2002. To find out what input data is required, go to the “Required Data” section of the help file for a specific module (ex: Arc Flash) and you will see what data is needed for every device for that specific module.
• Do I need to add every breaker size?
  If your client only plans to install that 30 amp breaker, most likely, you will not need to add the remaining sizes.
• Do I need to fill in every field in the Low Voltage Circuit Breaker and/or Thermal Magnetic Library?
  As an example, some users tend to worry about the “edit info” window for the manufacturer and model section of the library. These are non-essential and for informational purposes only.

3) View Tutorials at ETAP.Com
Before you start adding, check out our library tutorials in the following link to get an overview of what to expect.
http://etap.com/support/faqs-tutorials-topic.htm#library

4) Get a Digitizing Software
There are digitizing programs that you can find on the internet that, with a few clicks of the mouse, will have you input the curves, select the perimeter of the curve that needs to be digitized, and will output points for you to copy and paste onto ETAP’s library. This is easier and faster than reading points off of a curve.

5) Have someone check your work
Part of ETAP’s verification and validation process is to have an ETAP engineer’s work double checked by another ETAP engineer. We recommend you do the same for library addition.

The Role of ETAP’s Library

The Role of ETAP’s Library

In order to understand the role of ETAP’s library, we need to use an analogy that relates to real life.

Basically, imagine a car (ETAP), that has 22 engines (modules) and each engine requires its own type of  fuel (data).

The user can repetitively enter the same specific set of data and curves every time for each fuse, breaker, or relay model made by every manufacturer. However, a better idea is to enter this specific set of data for that particular model only once, whether by the user or by OTI, and the user can load it as many times from the library as he wants for whichever project he is working on.

Now, think of a module, such as Arc Flash, whose primary function is to calculate the incident energy of a possible arc flash from a panel, which in turn, will help the technician determine what precautions needs to be taken before working on that panel. As per the introduction of section 4 of IEEE Std 1584-2002, the incident energy calculation depends on the time the protective device, a relay for example, takes to disconnect the energized panel. The disconnection time is determined from the Time-Current Characteristic (TCC) curves which are stored in ETAP’s library.

This time, imagine the car has not been filled with its specific type of fuel (the TCC curves), which obviously means the car won’t take you very far (No results). This is exactly what’s going to happen when you run Arc Flash analysis without the data being loaded from the library to the breakers, fuses, relays, or etc. ETAP will successfully calculate the short circuit currents, however, when it comes time to determine how long it will take to disconnect a branch from the system, ETAP will see a breaker that has no data inside of it that tells that it’s supposed to trip in 0.1 seconds. ETAP in turn will give an error message, “FCT Not Determined”, which means that ETAP could not calculate the Fault Clearing Time (FCT), instead of giving the incident energy results.

The example above can be applied to other modules, such as Load Flow, Short Circuit, Motor Starting, etc.

It’s very important to realize that without utilization of ETAP’s Library data, ETAP’s functionality is seriously reduced.

Power Labs at Universities Provide Real World Experience

ETAP Power Lab at LSU

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), “Overall engineering employment is expected to grow by 11 percent over the 2008–18 decade, about as fast as the average for all occupations.”  It’s expected that there will be a strong demand for electrical devices, including electric power generators, to keep job growth going, with international engineering services performed in other countries adding to worldwide growth.

Also according to the BLS, increased interest in nuclear power energy will mean a higher demand for engineers to research and develop new designs for reactors, with over 18,000 new jobs expected to open up before 2018.

What does this mean to electrical engineering students in universities around the world?  Although growth in that employment sector is expected, the best jobs in any industry always go to the most promising and qualified individuals.  The best way to rise above the rest is to graduate from a college or university that provides a curriculum and lab environment that reflects real-world problems and challenges.

Several years ago, OTI decided to do their part by working directly with accredited engineering universities around the globe. With enrollment in the power sector dwindling, the intent was to empower students with the most comprehensive power system engineering software.

Universities that have installed an ETAP Power Lab have had very high placement ratios with their engineering students upon graduation. Time and again we hear about how the Power Lab helped students reach their academic goals by providing them with the tools and knowledge to smoothly transition into the workforce by having the value-added benefit of already knowing how to use ETAP.

Engineering schools that have practical hands-on laboratory classes that focus on current engineering issues and not just generic applications will turn out better prepared design and production engineers.