Experience

SONI - System Operator for Northern Ireland

• United Kingdom
• Utilities
• 1 - 100 Employee

• System Operational Manager

  • Feb 2021 - Present

  System Operational Manager (control centre manager) responsible for real time system operations within the NI Transmission System control centre, managing plant margins, system demand forecasts, renewable forecasts and generation to ensure security standards are maintained at all times.Responsible for all day support functions, including transmission and generation outage planning, risk analysis relating to system operations, and prudent operation of the system within the Operating Security Standards.Responsibility for a large team of highly skilled engineers working in a pressurised control centre environment.Managing key stakeholder relationships across the energy industry, including Regulators, Government Departments, DSOs, Power Stations, Interconnectors and other TSOs. Show less

• Assistant Manager Innovation

  • Mar 2019 - Feb 2021

• Assistant Manager Near Time Operations

  • May 2011 - Feb 2021

  Near Time Operations is responsible for ensuring that the operation of the power system in Ireland and Northern Ireland is carried out in a safe, secure and economic manner immediately ahead of real time operation. I have responsibility for generator and transmission outage planning and management, system analysis as well as a variety of system support functions for Northern Ireland including ROCOF testing. A key part of my role is also supporting Real Time (Control Centre Operations) as required. I have recently taken on the role of ENTSOE CGM Manager for Eirgrid and SONI. Show less

• EMS Applications Engineer

  • Apr 2010 - May 2011

  Support, maintenance and development of all EMS Applications including State Estimator, Contingency Analysis and Power Flow. Maintaining the EMS databases and providing support for other EMS users within SONI. Training of team in the use of WebFG Builder to generate and develop EMS diagrams.

• Near Time Engineer (Transmission)

  • Aug 2009 - Apr 2010

  Processing of outage requests from the transmission owner and monitoring compliance with NIE safety rules. Managing transmission outage planning to ensure system security.Support and maintenance of all EMS Applications.Monitoring and reporting on the performance of the transmission system.

• EMS Project Engineer

  • Aug 2007 - Aug 2009

  In 2006 SONI embarked on a landmark project which involved replacing an out-of-date Siemens electrical network mimic with a state-of-the-art Areva Energy Management System. As a key member of the project team my main responsibilities involved:Design and generation of fully animated single line diagrams for NI transmission substations within the EMS, including incorporation of any special protection schemes.Design and build of a fully animated overview diagram of the entire NI transmission network for display on the control room video wall.Facilitating production of Areva system in Paris before delivery to the SONI control centre.Conducting Factory Acceptance Testing and Site Acceptance Testing for the new system. Show less

• Graduate Engineer

  • Aug 2006 - Aug 2007

  I was part of a small team managing the transmission and generation outage planning for the NI system. I assisted with the outage plans and had responsibility for analysing all generator trips and frequency transients on the NI system.Period of time spent on shift in the control centre training on both the Generation and Transmission desk to get experience of real-time system control. Publication of the Generation Adequacy Report. Time spent with the NIE Technical Operations Group to gain experience of commissioning and testing. Show less