Trek Engineering, LLC

Jim Phipps, P.E.

Trekking in the electric power T&D industry since 1988, Jim is the owner and CEO of Trek Engineering, LLC.

Prior to starting Trek, Jim worked for Xcel Energy as a special studies and distribution planning engineer, NEI Electric Power Engineering, Inc. as a junior and senior engineer and later he co-founded Peak Power Engineering, Inc. where he served as president, vice president, and secretary in equal rotations in addition to serving on the board of directors for 17 years.

Education

Master of Science Electrical Engineering - MSEE

University of Colorado at Denver

P.E. Registrations

Active: State of Colorado

Non-Active: Alaska, California, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming

Engineering Experience

Studies: Arc-flash, short circuit, coordination, load-flow, harmonic distortion, power quality, switching transients, motor starting voltage drop and acceleration, power factor correction, line impedance calculations.

Substation design: Substations up to 345 kV, electrical design including complete relaying and protection control design, grounding IEEE Std.80, raceway systems, switchgear, control buildings, relay panels, RTU/SCADA, breakers, CCVTs, metering, capacitor banks, equipment specifications.

Switching station design: Switching stations, 115, 230 and 345 kV, ring-bus, bkr+1/2, double-bus/double-breaker, main-and-transfer, multiple bays, retrofits and breaker additions, new and existing.

Transmission lines: Economic feasibility study for 500 kV, 345 kV and 230 kV; wind generation interconnect, 230 kV, wood H-frame; AC interference and grounding experience, 345 kV.

Special Projects: Harmonic filters for ski lifts, drill rigs, pumping plants, rock crushers, rubber mixers and large sea vessels; high-resistance grounding; excitation systems; 3rd harmonic neutral grounding reactors for parallel generators; wound rotor resistor induction motor starters; closed polygon phase shifting auto-transformers; PLC based control and data acquisition systems; MSHA grounding practices in underground and surface mining applications; capacitor bank controls for multi-step applications; submersible pump variable speed drive power design for water projects; collector systems for wind generation; SCADA and communication systems; harmonic filter specification for 18,000 hp, 50 Hz, cyclo-converter.

Field Engineering, Investigations and Testing: Field engineering, investigations and testing projects, failure analysis and forensic engineering; corona testing and analysis on high voltage synchronous machines; power factor insulation testing on synchronous motors and generators; field startups; power quality; switching transient testing; ground resistance testing; RFI, EMC and EMF testing; audible corona noise measurement on 230 kV transmission lines.

Protective Relaying: Experienced in many areas of power system protection including, phase and ground overcurrent, differential, high-resistance grounding, reclosing, sync-check, transformers, motors, generators, transmission lines, distribution lines. Relay setting experience includes many different types of electro-mechanical, solid-state electronic and numerical relay systems:

- SEL- 300G, -311C, -311L, -351, -351S, -387, -387E, -421, -487V, -501, -551, -587, -587Z;
- Balser BE1-51, -59, -87, -CDS, -27, -79, -81;
- GE/Multilin-4a, -69, -169, -269, -469, -751, -L90;
- Westinghouse-CA, -CO, -CR, -HU.

Publications

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