Associate Engineer, Relay & Metering

Reporting to the AES CE Manager of Technical Services, the goal of this position is to support, improve, and optimize the AES Clean Energy operational performance of a fleet of renewables across the US by providing technical expertise, troubleshooting and critical process support to substation communications and equipment monitoring equipment. The OT-Substation Telemetry engineer will provide support and troubleshooting to solar, wind and BESS facilities with substation telemetry, relay connectivity and OT projects requiring operations support.  The Protection Relay and Metering engineer will serve as the operations department liaison between networking personnel and the operational technology department. 

Main Responsibilities: 

• Provide technical support, maintenance and troubleshooting of the SEL Disturbance Monitoring event collection system.  This involves establishing and maintaining communications protocols on both the DMA system and the remote automation controllers in the substation.   

• Ensure new sites are configured to collect events from substation relays and VPN tunnels and port maps are configured properly. 

• Provide real-time support to sites by collecting events and distributing event data and information to personnel to reduce the return to service time of substations impacted by disturbance events. 

• Manage the replacement of aging Remote Automation Controllers to minimize disruption to operations. 

• Participate in deployments of new OT initiatives and provide operations perspective/representation in their rollout. 

• Evaluate replacement solutions for obsolescent equipment such as PLC controllers or multifunction relays. 

• Participate in teams for the rollout of new NERC standards requiring telemetry solutions for event collection or electrical data collection. 

• Provide guidance and feedback to project execution teams on the setup of software protocols for communication of events/data. 

• Coordinate with reliability and performance engineers any OT/communications improvement technologies for the AESCE renewables fleet. 

• Share and capitalize on lessons learned and benchmarking from not only AES but other industry leaders. 

• Monitor new technology innovations in operational technology and substation communications systems and provide recommendations to project design teams to implement where appropriate. 

Skills & Qualifications: 

• ​​Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering or equivalent technical field from an accredited college/university and 3-5 years of professional experience in one or more of the following areas: (PLCs,SCADA integration, networking, renewable energy systems, relays, power plant controllers and substation equipment) 

• ​Knowledge of condition monitoring systems and their connectivity 

• ​Excellent troubleshooting and problem solving skills related to network communications and SCADA systems 

• ​Familiarity with data acquisition systems and SCADA systems 

• ​Candidate must be innovative, with strong troubleshooting skills and must be flexible, with the ability to organize, prioritize, execute and follow up on many concurrent duties, as well as adapt quickly to changes in business priorities.  

• ​Ability to establish trust through building relationships and demonstration of capabilities. 

• ​Strong coaching skills and safety awareness. 

• ​Proficient in the following focus areas; Communication Systems, operational technology systems related to renewables, and condition monitoring systems.  

• ​Outstanding interpersonal skills, including an ability to maintain calm and effective exchanges by all parties. 

• ​Excellent communication skills, both written and verbal. 

• ​Willingness and ability to travel up to 25% (35% first year). 

• ​Proficient in Microsoft Office bundle including Project and Visio 

• ​Planning and project management skills for multiple change efforts. 

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