Electric Transmission Engineer I (Hybrid)

Job Summary

Dominion Energy Virginia’s Electric Transmission (ET) department is seeking motivated, engaged engineers to fill multiple vacancies. All internships are on-site and will be located at one of the following office locations: Innsbrook in Glen Allen, VA, Magnolia System Operations Center in Richmond, VA, or Lincoln Park in Herndon, VA. 

Electric Transmission is responsible for the long-term planning, engineering, construction, and operations of the high voltage electric grid system operated from 69kV to 500kV. The grid is accountable for transmitting electricity from state of the art solar and wind facilities, integrating those technologies into the energy portfolio, and delivering the power to our many 2.7 million customers including the world's largest cluster of internet data centers.  

The departments that are hiring include, but not limited to: 

System Protection – Responsible for the design, modeling, and development of protective relay applications. 

• Substation Protection & Control Design: You will help create and modify protection and control design documents for substation projects including relay functional drawings, diagrams (logic/wiring), and bills of materials.  
• Substation Data Communications: You will support substation upgrade projects, operational assistance to in-service substation data communication equipment, and evaluation of emerging technologies including Data Concentrators, I/O processors, and protocol converters. 
• System Protection Standards: You will help develop, maintain, and support system-wide standards for protection, communications, metering, and control application. This team also tests and recommends new ways to improve safety, reliability, and efficiency. 
• System Protection Engineering: You will be involved in developing settings for protective relays that detect and isolate electrical faults within the power system. 

ET Planning – Responsible for short-term and long-term strategic planning initiatives. 

• Area Planning: You will assist with ensuring system adequacy in the next 5 years, as well as monitoring conditions developing within the next 15 years. You will learn how to run power flow studies and find solutions to reliability concerns. 
• System Modeling: You will carry out data mining and analytics on historical data to validate power system models and load forecasts. You should be comfortable with creating, maintaining, and using data/databases. 
• Strategic Studies: You will learn to perform stability, sensitivity analysis and power flow studies to ensure reliable operation and evaluate future load growth, generation retirements, and integration of renewable energy resources. 
• Planning & Strategic Initiatives: You will work within the PJM queue process, performing power flow and dynamic analysis to reliably inject new generation into our system. This team works closely with the CVOW and DER projects. 

Operational Engineering Support – Responsible for ensuring compliance and maximizing reliability, and for providing operational support during planned and emergent activities. 

• Operational Support & Reliability: You will help to ensure asset management activities meet the requirements for maximization of reliability.  
• System Protection Automation & Analysis – You will help to ensure electric grid reliability by analyzing system events 24/7 using a combination of technical skills including data processing, software development, and engineering principles.  

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System Operations Center (SOC) – Responsible for supporting DE’s evolving electric transmission grid. Operators at the SOC make real-time decisions that balance electricity supply and demand to keep the lights on. 

• EMS Modeling/Network Application: You will perform modeling for DE’s transmission system including network topology, equipment ratings and parameter impedances, and maintenance of operator displays. This team also develops tools to improve situational awareness in the operations control room. 
• Operations Planning Engineering: You will assist with transmission reliability studies within a 10-day window, performing N-1 contingency analysis, working on near- and long-term outage coordination, and supporting real-time operations.  
• SOC Services: You will support operations by providing continuous training to System Operators, maintaining the map board training simulator, ensuring NERC compliance, creating procedures, and developing a System Restoration Plan in the event of an eastern interconnect blackout. 

Transmission & Substation Engineering – Responsible for designing transmission lines and substation facilities in a safe, reliable, and efficient manner. 

• Conceptual Design (Substation): You will create and modify protection and control design documents for substation projects, including relay drawings and various diagrams (logic, elementary, wiring, and communications). 
• Conceptual Design (Lines): You will provide conceptual analysis, scoping, design, and estimates for high voltage transmission line projects. This could include building new lines, modifying existing lines, installing fiber, or relocating customers. 
• Physical Design (Substation): You will develop physical design engineering packages by reviewing calculations, performing research, and preparing construction drawings. 
• Overhead & Underground (Lines): You will design and implement high voltage transmission lines, by managing complex projects and coordinating with engineers to meet cost and schedule requirements. 
• Substation & Transmission Standards: You will develop standard engineering drawings and design requirements. This team also develops training for groups within Electric Transmission, as well as engages with industry at forums and events. 

Field Operations – Responsible for protecting the flow of power and the equipment that drives it. 

• Field Engineering: This is a hands-on role located in the field. For System Protection, you will work closely with technicians, learning how to install, commission and maintain protective relay and communications systems. For Electrical Equipment, you will participate in commissioning new equipment during construction, maintaining existing equipment, and supporting operational issues. 
• Quality Assurance/Quality Control: You will review design documentation and evidence provided by field inspectors, to ensure accurate and proper ratings of equipment in the appropriate databases. This impacts the safety, reliability, and accuracy of our Bulk Electric System (BES). 

Required Knowledge, Skills, Abilities & Experience

Engineer I: 0-2+ years of engineering experience (Note: A partial year of related work experience of 6 months or greater will be considered one year towards the qualifications; A an advanced degree can count as one year experience)
 

Required Skills:

• Strong time management skills with the ability to independently plan and organize work assignments.
• Basic understanding of AC/DC fundamentals
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including technical writing.
• Equally effective with working independently or in a team environment.
• Ability to think analytically and solve complex problems.
• Ability to interpret codes, regulations, and practices.

Preferred Skills:

• Exposure to ASPEN or CYME preferred.
• Knowledge of automation tools, databases, and software development is preferred.
• Programming skills for automation of system studies (e.g., Python, .NET, C#, etc.) is a plus.
• Experience with PSEE, PSCAD and/or RTDS modeling software is a plus.
• Understanding of 3 phase power systems is a strong plus.
• Understanding of the principles of transmission and/or distribution applications is strongly preferred. 

Education Requirements

Education Level: Bachelor's degree in Engineering

Preferred Disciplines: Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering

Note: Upcoming engineering graduates with a projected graduation date of no later than August 31, 2025, who also meet the engineering criteria will be considered.

REQUIRED ENGINEERING CRITERIA: 

 For placement of a candidate in the Engineer job series, the following criteria must be met: 

• Possess a 4-year Engineering degree from an ABET accredited Engineering program based on the year that the Engineering program was accredited by ABET, or 
• Possess a 4-year Engineering degree from an institution outside of the U.S. which is accredited through the country's own Engineering accrediting body under the Washington Accord as a full signatory, and is a degree that was recognized by the country's accrediting body on or after the date that full signatory status was achieved, or 
• Possess a 4-year degree in Engineering (non-ABET accredited), Physics, Chemistry, Math or Engineering Technology and a post-graduate Engineering degree from an institution where the undergraduate degree in the same Engineering discipline is ABET-accredited based on the year the Engineering program was accredited by ABET, or
• Holds or has previously held a valid U.S. Professional Engineer license.

Working Conditions

Test Description

Candidates working in the System Operations department will be required to complete and certify in the NERC Reliability Coordinator Role within 6 months of employment and PJM certification within 8 months of employment.