Aaron Leach

Background

About Aaron Leach

Consulting Electrical Engineer and Project Manager in the electrical power industry with extensive experience in generation, distribution, and transmission facilities. Generation experience includes hydroelectric, wind, solar PV, fuel cell, battery storage, internal combustion engine, and conventional gas turbine power plants. Includes layout, interconnection, protection, instrumentation & controls, communications, metering, regulation, and balance of plant design. Substation and switchyard design experience for medium voltage and high voltage facilities ranging between 12kV - 500kV. Includes layout, bus configuration & switching design, capacitor banks & harmonic filters, protection, controls, automation, communication, and energy storage. Distribution and transmission experience includes above-ground and underground route planning, sag & tension calculations, clearance calculations, cable pull calculations, cable sizing, 3-phase geometric line constant development, loading calculations, and protection design. Professional Electrical Engineer licensed in six states; California (Initial), Alaska, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. Certified C-10 Electrical Contractor. Other experience of note includes: • Generator protection, transformer protection, and line protection. Provide element calculations and recommended settings. Provide relay programming files. • System studies including load flow, short circuit, equipment evaluation, overcurrent coordination, arc flash, energy loss, cable ampacity by thermal model, ground grid, cable shielding analysis, concentric neutral sizing analysis, harmonic resonant analysis, and transient overvoltage analysis. • Detailed design engineering including system layout, single-line, three-line, schematic/elementary diagrams, connection diagrams, ground grid, SCADA, and communication design. • Generation upgrades including relay protection, automatic voltage regulation, and balance of plant. • Substation upgrades including relay protection, transformer, breakers, cap banks, and battery storage. • NERC/FERC compliance assistance. Non-compliance mitigation support. • Onsite startup and commissioning support. Troubleshooting of electrical systems. Oversee electrical testing and review testing results. Documentation and as-built of facility drawings. • Onsite training for arc flash and electrical safety. Onsite technical training of associate engineers. • Utility interconnection assistance.