You are being interviewed for a job as the plant electrical engineer. Among the several reasons you want this job, it’s a promotion from your current job. A mentor told you that when you go to that interview, ask the plant engineer what keeps him up at night — so you do.
In response, the plant engineer tells you that every time there’s a storm, the plant seems okay at first, but then the downtime spikes after a day or so. And things will continue to fail for a few days before everything goes back to normal.
When you ask about what was failing in particular, he says, “Mostly electronics. PLC modules, automatic controllers, those sorts of things. Also we lose a lot of LED lights for some reason, and it seems like motor failures follow these storms also.” He pauses and says, “I’ve interviewed three other candidates, and you’re the only one who asked me that question.”
What should you say next?
Answer to Quiz. Your mentor gave you good advice. Grab your safety glasses and say, “Let’s head out to the plant. I want to see this equipment that’s been failing.” While you’re on that little tour, ask to see the service entrance. Look for surge protection devices. If you don’t see them, ask about them. If the plant engineer doesn’t know, then say maybe they have not yet been installed. Then say that if they have been installed and if you were hired, you’d determine if they are correctly sized/located, and you’d determine whether they are part of a tiered strategy because this would be the main defense against the kind of damage he described. This has not been done, or these problems would not exist. Unless, of course, the surge protection devices have been fried. When were they last tested?
Then explain there are other things to check. For example, does the plant’s lightning protection system conform to the Lightning Protection Institute’s latest standard? Does a copy of that standard exist in the plant somewhere? What about the NFPA standard for lightning protection?
Then there’s the bonding system. Ask if he knows what that is and how it works. Explain that it’s a metallic path that eliminates dangerous differences in voltage between metallic objects and that it is very different from grounding. And you know how to inspect it and make the necessary corrections. If it’s deficient, undesired circulating currents may be zapping equipment. This also poses a personnel hazard.
You’ve just demonstrated that you understand at least the basics of stopping transient events from damaging equipment. Don’t oversell, you’ve set the hook and you just need to wait for that job offer phone call to come. You shouldn’t have to wait long, because you took the initiative to find out what the Plant Engineer needs the most from whoever steps into this job.
