October 2021

LIMA Energy Facility Tour & Happy Hour

YPE Philly was finally able to reunite at the first in-person event since pre-COVID! Lima Company graciously hosted our group at their headquarters and training facility in Northeast Philadelphia. The 37,000 sq ft facility is powered by one of Lima's micro combined heat & power systems (mCHP), which generates power on-site and recaptures the lost heat as steam or hot water to supply heating, cooling and hot water for the entire building. The mCHP showcased in the training facility is expected to reduce the incremental cost of an aggregate unit of energy by 47.6% and can keep them entirely off the grid when desired.

The group learned a lot from the experienced Lima team during the demo & presentation. Bob (VP of Sales) walked us through the history of Lima Company and told us about the full line of energy products & services Lima provides and integrates as one, holistic solution. Standa (Sr Integrations Engineer) dove into the details of how the mCHP works, technical considerations they look at when designing CHP solutions and why he believes hydrogen will be a major player in the energy space in the future. He highlighted how 2G Energy, a leading CHP manufacturer, designs engines that can be retrofitted to utilize hydrogen on-site to take advantage of this highly efficient, cost effective and climate neutral fuel.

Jason (VP of Energy Services) explained the financial aspects of funding a CHP project, as well as how Lima determines the best products and utilization of different systems to save as much money and energy as possible for their clients. The rest of the team that were present were incredibly warm and welcoming hosts - even treating us to a happy hour! It was an amazing event all around and certainly set YPE Philly's return to in-person events off on the right foot!

Upcoming Events

Our 2021 schedule of events is taking shape, and we still have some more exciting ideas to come!e.

YPE Northeast - Sustainable Cities: Oct 13 @ 6-8 PM
- Join the members of the Philadelphia, Boston, and New York City YPE chapters for a comparison of each city's energy-focused sustainability plan and initiatives.
- Register for the event here
YPE Learning - FERC Under the New Administration: Planning for Q4
Q4 Co-events: We look forward to collaborations with AABE and WRISE.
YPE Learning - Emerging Technologies: A series of sessions being planned for the fall

Classifieds

ExecuPOWER, a full-service, certified women-owned engineering-consulting firm that provides design, project & construction management services to the power industry, has several open roles including:

3 Project Managers with experience with utility projects, who will be responsible for the management of scope, schedule, budget, and safety performance of multiple projects and programs. This position leads project teams through business case/capital approval process, development, and execution of project plans and project closeout. This position can be located in DC, DE, MD, NJ, PA, or Northern VA.

3 Project Management Analysts (PMA) with experience with utility projects, who will be responsible to manage project budgets using cost management techniques. Build consensus regarding decisions that have a direct impact on the business unit. Analyze options and risks. Handle conflicting interests related to approaches on projects. Prepare financial reports for multiple projects, track and monitor project budgets and create work orders. Coordinate project meetings. This position can be located in Greater Philadelphia and Central Jersey areas.

2 Cost Controllers to support our Project Management office. This position will assist in the development and monitoring of annual budgets, actual and forecasted costs, and long-range plans for transmission, substation, and distribution programs. This position utilizes multiple existing systems to support current and future work with respect to budgeting, financial forecasting, actual cost tracking, project authorization, work management, contracts, and material tracking. This position supports the preparation of comprehensive reports to support business operations including reauthorization risk, forecast accuracy, CIAC forecast and analysis, contingency released and remaining, and others, as requested. This position can be located in Greater Philadelphia and Central Jersey areas.

2 Project Controls Schedulers to provide analytical schedule support for Project Managers. The Project Controls Scheduler ensures adherence to standard milestone reporting, policies, programs, processes, and scheduling protocols. This position is responsible for developing status and analyzing detailed critical path schedules, workload, and resource forecasts through the use of computer applications, such as Primavera P6, Project View, Hyperion System, Asset Suite 8, Microsoft Excel, Access, Power Point, MS Project, etc. The Project Controls Scheduler also actively works to support the project closeout process and contributes to the development of reports to identify closeout issues. Additionally, this position identifies project/program milestones and schedule issues early and contributes to the resolutions to ensure the successful execution of projects and programs as well as ensures that project schedules are properly baselined at each phase approval. This position can be located in Greater Philadelphia and Central Jersey areas.

Senior Transmission Engineer to support the Transmission Engineering Group. The position will be responsible for the design engineering of new electric transmission lines for high-voltage (HV) and extra high-voltage (EHV) systems involving infrastructure improvements, relocations, voltage conversions, capacity expansions, and system upgrades. Position preferred locations: DC, DE, FL, MD, NJ, NY, NC, PA, or VA.

2 Protections and Controls Substation Engineers to support our Substation Engineering Group. The position will be responsible for drawing development consisting of one lines, relay functionals, three-lines, AC/DC schematics, RTU/DFR/annunciator schematics, IRIG-B schematics, panel front views, control house layouts, wiring diagrams & bill of materials, DC battery sizing and battery charger sizing, AC station service transformer sizing and Voltage drop and cable sizing. You will need 5+ years experience. Position preferred locations: AK, DC, DE, FL, LA, MD, MS, NJ, NY, NC, PA, TX, or VA.

2 Protections and Controls Wiring Designers to support our Substation Engineering Group. The P&C Designer would prepare schematic and associated wiring diagrams for high voltage utility substations projects and renewable energy interconnections. Typical CAD Design is that of functional electrical drawing: Operational Diagrams, Single Line Drawings, Three Line Drawings, Current and Potential Schematics, Protection and Control Schematics, Communication Schematics, Alarm Schematics and associated Wiring Diagrams (Point to Point Translation). 3+ years experience is required. Position preferred locations: AK, DC, DE, FL, LA, MD, MS, NJ, NY, NC, PA, TX, or VA.

Contact Stacy Culbertson at stacy.culbertson@execupower.com for more details.

McCormick Taylor is a full-service civil engineering firm providing creative design, planning, and environmental solutions to the challenges of everyday life. Since 1946, we've focused on our relationships with people—our clients, our employees, and the communities we serve.

Environmental Technician/Inspector: McCormick Taylor is seeking an Environmental Inspector to join our growing Energy/Utilities group. The position will involve conducting environmental compliance inspections on active construction projects occurring largely in the DC Metro region. The position will also involve other related field work for linear projects; both Transportation and Energy. The Environmental Inspector will be inspecting, communicating and reporting independently for routine erosion/sediment control and storm water control issues at construction projects. Responsibilities Monitor and perform environmental inspections to ensure regulatory compliance Perform daily record keeping of project activities Accurately document field observations. The ideal candidate will be comfortable and capable working in the field in all seasons, sometimes in inclement weather, and have a basic understanding of construction techniques and construction site protocols. This position is located in Landover, MD.
Environmental Scientist: McCormick Taylor is seeking an Environmental Scientist to join our growing Energy/Utilities group. The position will involve conducting environmental compliance inspections on active construction projects occurring largely in the DC Metro region. The position will also involve development and review of permit applications as well as other natural resource related field work for linear projects; both Transportation and Energy. The ideal candidate will be comfortable and capable working in the field in all seasons, sometimes in inclement weather, and have a basic understanding of construction techniques and construction site protocols. This position is located in Landover, MD.
Environmental Compliance Consultant: McCormick Taylor is seeking an Environmental Compliance Consultant to join our Energy/Utilities Group in Columbia, SC. The ideal candidate will have an operational focused background with excellent communication skills. We are looking for an enthusiastic, dependable, self-starting team player who is highly organized and able to work effectively under tight deadlines with minimal supervision. This position is located in Columbia, SC.

Please visit https://careers-mccormicktaylor.icims.com/jobs/search to apply online and learn more about these positions.

The Philadelphia Energy Authority is an independent municipal authority focused on energy affordability and sustainability.

Program Manager who will help with implementation of core PEA programs, Solarize Philly and Built to Last. We are seeking an organized, results driven person, who is eager to help grow Philadelphia's clean energy economy.

Please visit https://philaenergy.org/job/program-manager-residential-programs/ to apply online and learn more about these positions.

Exelon - PECO is Pennsylvania’s largest electric and natural gas utility, delivering power to more than 1.6 million electric customers and more than 532,000 natural gas customers in southeastern Pennsylvania. PECO is a subsidiary of Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), the nation’s leading competitive energy supplier.

Senior Project Manager to lead a small team of Project Managers, Estimators, and Customer Liaisons responsible for initial scoping, financing, estimating, scheduling, permitting, walk downs, and the external customer experience of $600M worth of gas and electrical distribution projects annually.

Please visit https://jobs.exeloncorp.com/jobs/7594358-sr-project-manager to apply online and learn more about these positions.

Recent Energy News

Infrastructure Implications
By Rory Sweeney
Perhaps you've heard: driven by the Biden administration, Congress is trying to hammer out a sprawling, unprecedented, bipartisan, trillion-dollar infrastructure-investment bill (and an even larger, separate bill Democrats are trying to enact on their own through a budgetary process called reconciliation as an accompaniment) that promise to make transformative updates to everything from transportation to water supply to broadband access while also taking environmental justice and other social issues into consideration.
Congressional leadership has indicated they are now hoping for approval by the end of the month, but the target date has already been pushed back several times. As with any massive governmental-spending efforts like this, its efficacy and fair execution will hinge extensively on the details written into the bills, of which the primary HR3684 alone totals approximately 2,700 pages. Specific to the energy sector, there are several items that might pose significant impacts to industry professionals. We'll review two here:
- according to a recent update on the bills developed by regional grid-operator PJM for its members, Section 40105 of the bill overwrites current legal precedent to grant FERC authority to site new transmission lines within DOE-designated national-interest transmission corridors if a state either fails to act or unreasonably conditions siting approval after one year. Additionally, Section 40106 authorizes the Energy Department secretary to fund new transmission lines and market their capacity in a matter that "maximizes the return to the Treasury." PJM indicated they worked with congressional staff to ensure the secretary's newfound authority would be regulated under the Federal Power Act (which is otherwise largely inapplicable to DOE) and coordinated with regional planning authorities (like PJM) to avoid duplication or misalignment with plans chosen through the regional planning process. The provisions are likely to exacerbate natural tensions in the cooperative federalism system between state and federal jurisdiction, as well as preferences for top-down or bottom-up philosophies for planning, authority and control of infrastructure development.
- Section 40323 of the bill authorizes the DOE secretary to spend up to $6 billion to support for up to four years existing nuclear units that are "projected to cease operations due to economic factors" in an effort (at least in part) to avoid a substantial backslide on emissions-free electricity production that would occur if nuclear generators across the country continue to be allowed to retire. But nuclear subsidies have long been criticized on both the federal and state levels as uneconomic, taxpayer-sponsored crutches to prop up resources that simply aren't able to compete in the open market. More insidiously, some stakeholders accuse companies with nuclear-generation assets of exploiting climate concerns as leverage to squeeze states for as much as they're able to cough up -- or, in the case of Ohio and Illinois, federal investigations have uncovered outright corruption. Still, a handful of states have awarded more than a billion dollars in nuclear subsidies, and logically, nuclear generators have announced plans to take advantage of the windfalls.

A Full FERC Once Again

As if in response to the news item in our September issue about when the new FERC nominee would be announced, the White House announced (the very next day, mind you) that District of Columbia Public Service Commission Chairman Willie Phillips would be tapped for the FERC commissioner seat vacated on Aug. 30 by former Commissioner Neil Chatterjee, whose term expired at the end of June. If confirmed by the Senate, Phillips, who has been at the D.C. PSC since 2014, will give the Democrats a 3-2 majority at FERC, which recent results have indicated they will need going forward.

GT Power Hour Podcast, Episode 25: A Primer on the Infrastructure Bill and all things Beltway

In which, in perhaps our most-political episode, we press former U.S. Congressman (among many other titles he's held in public office) Ryan Costello to explain the multi-trillion-dollar infrastructure bill, what it means for the energy sector, the difficulty and limitations of the parallel-path reconciliation bill, how the Byrd rule factors in and what it means for DOE and a potential clean-energy standard, the Mariner East oil-and-gas pipeline, the tradeoffs and impacts of federal vs. local authority, how politicians should act, why they act the way they actually do and what the 76ers need to do about Ben Simmons. Whew!

Meet The Board:

Will Carpenter

As a Civil-Site Engineer in the Energy Utility Industry I lead a team of Professional Engineers (PEs) and Engineer’s in Training (EITs) on a range of infrastructure maintenance and rebuild projects. Our role is to provide the site design, erosion and sediment control, stormwater management, drainage, grading, constructability reviews, and local permitting associated with anything from an electric substation expansion to the rebuild of a 10 mile natural gas pipeline. A large part of our work includes collaboration with environmental scientists for any natural resource impacts (wetlands, cultural resources, avian impacts, etc.) and utility engineers for establishment of the utility’s horizontal and vertical alignments, before then presenting the design and construction plan to the state or local permitting agencies

Q: What’s something cool you’re currently working on?
We’re wrapping up construction oversight of a 10 acre wetland mitigation project, for which we also provided the site design. Seeing a site from the early conception through construction is always satisfying, and you get to learn a lot from any hiccups or hurdles you encounter along the way.

Q: What’s your favorite movie?

Q: What’s your favorite place?
My fondest memories are of the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State and Bethany Beach Delaware. Both are beautiful places in relaxing environments – great places to escape and disconnect.

Q: What are some of your hobbies?
I tend to always have “a project”, which over the past year has been various home improvement projects. And I’ve always enjoyed running, which we now occasionally do as a family.

Q: What are three things you can’t live without?
Family, music, and time outdoors.

Q: What question do you wish you’d been asked?
Something about pets! We have a 10yr old golden retriever, Oliver, who carries around with the kids like a third child.

Young Professionals in Energy – Philly