# EE in a powe plant



## HornTootinEE (Mar 31, 2010)

So what do most EEs working in a power plant do? Is there much in the way of internal electric distribution, controls circutis, etc?


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## benbo (Mar 31, 2010)

djohnson.ee said:


> So what do most EEs working in a power plant do? Is there much in the way of internal electric distribution, controls circutis, etc?


My experience is with the local merchant power plants with very small staff. In this case they generally only have one or two engineers and they all have to be sort of"jack of all trades." They may have one mechanical and one electrical and the electrical may specialize on electrical stuff. But since the plant is up and running they mainly work on maintenance/troubleshooting and infrequently on modifications and upgrades. Once the plant is built, the internal distribution is pretty much set unless they decide to add additional motors, pumps or whatever. But there is often work on the controls and intrumentation / DCS system. One thing many of them are doing now is developing programs to deal with new NERC standards and arc flash protection.

Nuclear plants or utility owned plants may be different because they sometimes have larger staffs.


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## Flyer_PE (Mar 31, 2010)

My observation for fossil stations pretty much matches benbo's. Usually one or two electrical specialists on site. The sites we work with are all pretty old so there's a lot of retrofit work going on. The staffing levels are bare bones and the EE is pretty much on call 24/7. He's doing everything from writing equipment specifications to testing design changes and calibrating relays.

Nuclear plants are a different ball game. The permanent staff at a typical nuke is around 900 people with engineering accounting for about 100 or so. The contractor staffing levels vary by refuel outage and other scopes. The engineering jobs are broken up into different functions. There are engineers that do nothing but design changes. Others are strictly support for maintenance and operations. Most of the work at the older plants is retro-fit/upgrade work due to parts obsolescence.


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