Simper Fi e57,
I was not in an engineering battalion, aviation instead, but the methodology is consistent throughout the Corp.
What I would suggest to anyone wanting to look for work in power distribution (line work) is that substation maintenance is not a bad gig. If you can find a substation maintenance contractor, Seimens has crews, to get on board with. And then you need to study your butt off, first on the safety and then distribution, relays and coordination. Prints come in several different flavors, distribution schemes, single line diagrams for the substation, relay schematics, and wiring diagrams for individual pieces of equipment.
It can be an interesting career, and if you are willing to travel a bit, it can take you to some interesting locations. Almost every piece of substation equipment needs some TLC abut every 5 years or so and qualified, safety conscious people to do the work are always in demand.
A few years back I was assigned for 2 yrs to the maint. dept for the power distribution system in a refinery. As with any maintenance crew there are slow times with just repetitive tasks but occasionally it gets very interesting. I once found a main breaker that the shorting bars on the CT’s for the 50/51 relay had not ever been removed since the day they were installed over 20 yrs before. After a bit of switching we were able to isolate the line side and then conduct a few tests before putting the main back in service. A lot of the grunt work in the dept. was subbed out to specialty contractors like Seimens and Sub Station Test a local contractor.
The grunt work isn’t too heavy; 600 lb. breakers are on rollers or have lifts to move them about. And cleaning or changing a couple of hundred gallons of oil on a large oil cooled Xfmr isn’t a dirty job.
But safety work is critical, before you begin work on a piece of equipment that is connected to a buss, you isolate the buss and then you apply safety grounds to the buss so you are working between grounds. Choosing the proper grounding cables for the buss and applying them correctly are critical steps in the safe work process.
