Comprehensive solutions from regulatory compliance to replacing end-of-life equipment.
Today’s power-generating companies often lack enough resources in-house to tackle the many engineering challenges they face, including growing North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) compliance obligations, the replacement of aging equipment, updating protection and controls schemes and relay setting expertise.
TRC delivers a comprehensive portfolio of power generation engineering solutions to meet our clients’ most pressing needs. As your trusted project partner, we provide quality results and unmatched technical expertise from initial scoping through to project closeout.
TRC is here to help you design, maintain and manage safe and reliable power generation systems. Our extensive knowledge and expertise mean we can handle projects of any size, scope or complexity, delivering innovative solutions with the latest tools and technologies.
With core skills in electrical engineering, system protection, automation and studies, TRC’s engineers and project managers have extensive experience working in the generation industry. We provide a full range of engineering services, third-party reviews, protective relay training, construction oversight and post-modification testing and commissioning.
Our deep cultural focus on quality means we comply fully with station design and work control processes and ensure a seamless transition through all phases of a project.
With a rapidly evolving utility industry, you need reliable power generation systems that meet your customers’ demands and protect against future failures. TRC will work alongside your team as a true partner, assessing and upgrading equipment and facilities to strengthen and improve power plant facilities.
Our power plant engineering solutions include:
Through careful planning and execution, TRC helps clients meet both current and future energy demands. Detailed electrical plans and specifications ensure an efficient, reliable and compliant system. Our designs include:
Equipment protection schemes are crucial to the engineering process to safeguard critical equipment from damage while ensuring the safety and reliability of system components, such as:
TRC empowers your staff with efficient operation, monitoring and control of your power generation processes. We employ cutting-edge technologies and advanced communication methods like:
TRC conducts various analyses that contribute to the effective management of power generation facilities, including:
Evaluate the effectiveness of your power generation systems with independent evaluations conducted by TRC experts. We assess power plant design, performance or compliance and help identify potential issues or regulatory concerns.
TRC’s end-to-end oversight ensures every aspect of your power generation project is planned, organized and overseen successfully and on time. Our team can handle every challenge by monitoring progress and helping your team manage risks and control costs.
Our customized training educates personnel on how to operate and maintain protective relays that detect electrical faults and safeguard equipment from damage.
To ensure the reliability and security of the electric grid, your facility must comply with standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, including Protection and Control (PRC) and Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP).Our NERC experts help you stay current with and understand the many compliance requirements across numerous standards families. We provide technical evaluations, audit support and training.
Embrace what’s possible with TRC. We look forward to advancing your power generation engineering project. Contact us to learn more.
Our practitioners share their insights and perspectives on the trends and challenges shaping the market.
Modernizing utility equipment, standards and processes pays dividends for improved safety, security and reliability. But transitioning to a new high-tech system model can be challenging.
Faced with an aging fleet, stricter environmental regulations, reduced costs for natural gas and competition from renewables, more than 600 power plants have been decommissioned in the last 20 years, a pace that will increase with the announced closure of nearly 350 additional plants by 2025.
TRC’s analysis for one client fleet shows that even a $70,000 EV can compete on cost with a comparable gas-hybrid vehicle priced at $40,000 – at least in California where upfront and ongoing incentives stack up quickly.
Today, TRC announced the expansion of its digital capabilities with the acquisition of Quatric, a Montreal, QC and Quincy, MA-based firm that provides engineering services and technology solutions to electric and gas utilities.
Under the proposed NERC TPL-001-5 standard, utilities with transmission planning responsibilities will be required to identify reliability risks related to protection system failures and take mandatory corrective action. It will be critical to have an in depth understanding of your company’s protection system settings and to perform the system studies necessary to identify where single points of failure may result in cascading tripping of transmission elements. Mitigation actions may require the installation of redundant protection systems which in turn may lead to significant substation redesign. Transmission planners and planning coordinators should begin preparing for any necessary protection system changes. TPL-001-5 Overview NERC began studying the reliability risk associated with single points of protection system failure starting in 2011 as directed in FERC Order 754. TPL-001-5 will bring significant changes for Planning Coordinators and Transmission Planners as they perform annual Planning Assessments. There is a new obligation to adequately account for the reliability risk posed by single point of protection system failure via risk-based Assessment. This reliability risk management approach will be implemented through modifications to the Category P5 Planning Event which is described in Table 1 of the TPL-001-5 standard. NERC believes that the most cost-effective Corrective Action Plans to address unacceptable system performance for the P5 Planning Events will likely be to add protection system component redundancy in certain cases. Protection system redundancy changes to address Category P5 Event system performance violations should reduce or even negate non-redundant component related risks that need to be considered in assessing transmission system performance. These risks will be identified during simulations of certain extreme events as required under the standard. TPL-001-5 also addresses reliability risks related to outage management as directed in FERC Order 786. The standard requires utility planners to consider maintenance outages of significant facilities as well as outages for critical long lead time to repair or replace equipment. Specifically, it addresses stability analysis to assess system performance for conditions expected during possible unavailability of long lead time equipment. Although it is not a NERC defined term, it is believed that a “spare equipment strategy will be sufficient to allow flexibility for utilities to conduct both steady state and stability analysis required by TPL-001-5. For example, a utility’s spare equipment strategy may include the warehousing of a replacement transformer to be installed given the failure of an in service transformer. When a utility’s spare equipment strategy may prevent major transmission equipment from being out-of-service for one year or more, this possible equipment unavailability need not be assessed as part of TPL-001-5.
LOWELL, Mass. – TRC, a leading provider of end-to-end engineering, consulting and construction management solutions fueled by innovative technology, announced today it has acquired IJUS, a top power/utility engineering firm based in Gahanna, Ohio. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
TRC is proud to support Huntington, NY bolster power reliability and climate-change resiliency with a sophisticated new “community microgrid’’ combining solar energy, a fuel cell, biogas and traditional natural gas to deliver electricity and heat to local customers and institutions.
