What's your job about?
I’m a graduate engineer at Powerlink Queensland currently working in the Synchronous Connections team. Powerlink is one of the few Transmission Network Service Providers (TNSP) in Australia, which means that they are an electricity company that owns the transmission infrastructure, like power lines and substations, in Queensland. Owning the electricity transmission infrastructure in Queensland means that Powerlink is responsible for things like building new transmission connections, conducting maintenance works to keep the infrastructure functioning, planning how the power network should evolve to meet upcoming needs and operating the network to ensure that electricity is delivered safely, economically and reliably to customers.
My role in the Synchronous Connections team is relevant to both planning and operational responsibilities. At Powerlink, one of the things we do is connect power stations to the transmission network so the power can be delivered via the distribution network to homes. Connecting a new power station has the potential to be very disruptive to our network, it is kind of like having another person climb onto a trampoline and start jumping. So we must make sure that the new power station does not destabilise everyone who is already there and cause harm to the rest of the network.
I’m responsible for investigating how a generator behaves to ensure that its performance is up to the standard required before it connects. I do this by running a lot of simulations on my computer so I can go looking for unusual behaviour.
What's your background?
I’ve been in Brisbane all my life and I’ve always been fascinated with science. I remember asking my mum to subscribe to a weekly science cartoon magazine and for the next two and a bit years the magazines covered just about everything related to science. As you can imagine science was my favourite subject growing up.
By the time I was in high school, I had an interest in a lot of subjects. Not only in sciences and maths but also in business and history. I was torn between an engineering/science degree and a business degree. In the end, I decided to do both, a dual in Engineering and Commerce at the University of Queensland. But to be honest I was just glad I didn’t need to do English classes anymore.
Chemistry was my favourite subject in high school, so when I decided to do engineering I thought I was going to be a chemical engineer. But I secretly had electrical engineering as a backup because it sounded cool and had cool projects like building a Tetris game. When chemical engineering wasn’t what I thought it’d be, I turned to electrical engineering hoping that I had made the right choice.
A few years later, I got my first vacation placement at Powerlink. I didn’t know anything about power engineering at the time but over the next few months, the idea of working in electricity grew on me so I decided to pursue it as a career.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Yes absolutely. I think that what makes engineers great is the set of traits that they possess, which do not necessarily come as a result of their background. I think that the key traits required for connection engineers are:
It might sound a bit generic but it is what is demanded of the job. That is, to pick apart and investigate the behaviour of a generator and communicate the findings to the relevant parties.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The coolest thing about my job is getting to understand how generators work and behave. It turns out that most of the fundamentals are already covered in university so there are plenty of times where I would refer back to equations that I learned. Also, I find the control systems world very interesting and it is fascinating to see how physical and electromechanical devices are represented in control block diagrams.
What are the limitations of your job?
I find the job at times to be quite mentally exhausting and I can be quite tired by the time I get home. So I spend less time than I would like performing mentally intensive tasks outside of work like self-learning or playing music. Furthermore, I enjoy going out to the site but the work is 100% office-based. In the past, the Synchronous Connections team used to perform tests at the generator site but the procedure changed several years ago so the requirement to be on site is no longer there.
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