Lightning strikes on power systems are common. A storm is overhead and lightning attempts to find the easiest pathway to ground. This...

General - Motors are magnetic devices. They rely on the interaction between magnetic fields to create rotation. Before this rotation...

Determining the ampacity of conductors is never easy. There are a lot of factors to consider, including derating and overcurrent...

At the highest level, we could break electrical circuits into 2 categories: branch circuits and feeder circuits. Branch circuits describe...

What's the difference between an electrical engineer and an electrician? I can't tell you how many times I've heard that question. It's...

Electricity is dangerous-plain and simple. The world has become electrified and electricity has almost universally improved the standard...

The Problem - Consider this hypothetical example: an XHHW-2 circuit is designed for operation at 90°C. The engineer or designer believes...

What are Transients? - Transients describe the behavior of a circuit before it reaches a steady-state condition. This means that some new...

Designing and building a good electrical power system is about more than just making sure that all of the studies turn out okay. A common...

Introduction - If you take a college ethics class, chances are you'll be learning about philosophers and the abstract ideas. My purpose...

Basics - The danger most people associate with electrical systems is shock: You touch a wire and a metal frame and experience a jolt of...

Transformers are commonly specified and ordered based on a few key parameters, including the primary and secondary voltages, the apparent...

Basics - Heat transfer isn't what comes to most people's mind when they hear "electrical engineering", but for power systems engineers...

Electrical power systems engineers, especially those working on systems at the distribution level, are generally required to complete...

Battery energy storage systems (BESS) have long been held as a vital part of the shift to renewable energy. Renewables like wind and...

Too many times have I heard an engineer (or student) tell me, "I like engineering because things are black and white. You can always find...

In the real world, electrical engineers don't work in isolation. For better or worse, there are always overlaps of engineering...

General - Capacitors are commonly used as standalone devices in industrial, transmission, and distribution power systems to compensate...

Ladder logic is the dominant representation of controls in power systems. Learn more about ladder logic, relaying, and boolean algebra here

"Electrical engineers design to standards". This was a phrase one of my college professors shared with me in a professional practice...