Dale Hobbs

6.30 AM

I wake up, have breakfast and prepare for the day ahead.

7.15 AM

I leave for work and listen to music or read a book on the train.

8.00 AM

Get to work and begin working on one of my many tasks in transmission network planning.

8.30 AM

This morning I’m handling a transmission connection enquiry. I work with other teams in the business to understand the requirements of the customer, to ensure our planning studies meet the requirements for connection to the transmission network.

9.30 AM

Once the information is gathered, I’ll start planning possible connection arrangements for the new customer to ensure the we can accommodate the connection and maintain network safety and reliability. This involves creating new single line diagrams of the network to determine the most suitable connection method and drafting potential line route options around the closest substation. Once these options are completed, they’ll be presented to our engineering and design team to begin a detailed design of the new connection.

12.00 PM

I have lunch with the team and other grads. Working in the city means there are lots of options to choose from - I’ll usually go for Japanese food if I haven’t brought my own lunch.

12.30 PM

My next task is performing a network assessment for new transmission connection. Once the connection arrangement is complete, I’ll perform a steady state analysis - in this case the study is for a new solar farm connection. To ensure safe operation, I’ll test the network with the new connection under a wide range of possible load and generation scenarios. On top of this, contingency testing on the network is needed to ensure network performance is maintained in the case of a network outage.

From time to time, there’s the commissioning of a new transmission connected generator such as solar farms and wind farms. This usually involves travel to the generation site and staying a night or two depending if there is enough wind and solar generation for testing.

I’ve been fortunate to be involved in the commissioning of a wind farm in the north of our network. We ran functional testing on the generators, examining their performance to meet the Western Power technical rules and then begin supplying WA with renewable energy.

4.00 PM

I leave work and listen to more music or continue reading my book on the train home.

5.00 PM

Arrive home. I wind down by spending time in the garden, playing some PlayStation or going to the gym before having dinner.

9.00 PM

Go to bed for some much-needed rest!