PRINCIPAL ENGINEER

AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION

Training, project management, general substation design, contract preparation, materials procurement, control and relay system design, relay calibration and setting, protective device coordination, station cut-in and inspection and commissioning services

 

 

EXPERIENCE

Mr. Trotter obtained experience in transmission and distribution design while working as a coop student at Southern Engineering Co. He developed a software package that solves for all criteria involved in the mechanical design of distribution power lines. Mr. Trotter has also obtained experience in distribution and transmission field engineering. After taking a full time position at Southern Engineering in 1991, he obtained experience in substation design and has continued his knowledge in power systems since starting PCE in 1999.

Mr. Trotter is very knowledgeable in relay panel design, relay setting calculations for transformer, line and bus protection and relay testing and calibration. He has vast experience with both electromechanical and microprocessor relays. In the earlier years of the company, Mr. Trotter performed periodic system-wide, setting calculation, and relay testing of all substation relays and batteries for a number of clients.

Mr. Trotter is a Principal Engineer and COO at Power Consulting Engineers. He oversees the engineers who are responsible for the scheduling and preparing of plans, drawings, and specifications for substation projects. Mr. Trotters responsibilities include the design department and the field services department.  This department does station commissioning, relay and battery testing, relay panel replacement or upgrade and troubleshooting.  Mr. Trotter also spend a lot of time training and grooming his engineers and engineering aides.

Collins Creek 115 – 24.94 x 12.47 kV Substation — Horry E.C.I., Conway, SC

Mr. Trotter was the project manager for the 115 – 24.94 x 12.47/7.2 kV substation and coordinated the project with Horry E.C.I and Santee Cooper (115 kV supplier). The station had a circuit switcher on the high side, one 28 MVA transformer and six circuits with feeder regulation on the low side. Microprocessor based overcurrent and differential relays were used to protect the station. The project included preparing final drawings, writing the contract and specifications, biding the project, awarding the erection contract, performing the final inspection, calibrating all relays, performing functional testing of the protective systems and placing the station in service. Mr. Trotter has completed dozens of other Horry ECI stations, ranging in size from 14MVA to 56MVA, since 1991.

Santee Electric Cooperative, Inc. — Kingstree, SC

Mr. Trotter evaluated all substation relay settings and made recommendations for modifications. He tested and calibrated all relays in 27 stations while making his recommended changes. He performed functional tests of the existing protection systems and corrected numerous problems that would have resulted in mis-operation or no operation of the relay systems.

27 Breaker and Relay Panel Replacement — Rappahannock Electric Cooperative, Front Royal, VA

Mr. Trotter was project manager for this breaker and relay panel smart grid replacement project for 27 line distance panels. The new panels were designed to replace the existing transmission protection and control panels. The new panels were designed to ease the interface with multiple other existing substation relay panels. He and his crew did the panel replacement, completed the intertie wiring with the other hot panels, calculated settings, programmed the relays and fully function tested each installation.

EDUCATION

Bachelor of Electrical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology

Minor in Computer Engineering

PROFESSIONAL REGISTRATION

Registered Professional Engineer, multiple states

REFERENCES

Mr. Tom Musick, V.P. of Engineering, South Central Electric Power Company, Lancaster, OH, (740) 653-4422 ext 6183

Mr. Reed Cooper, Engineer, Horry E.C.I., Conway, SC, (843) 369-6269

Mr. Sam Wilson, Director of Substations, Rappahannock E.C., Fredericksburg, VA, (540) 891-5846