HV/MV experience in solar fields is highly preferred.
Position Summary
The Solar / Substation Electrical Technician II supports operations, maintenance, troubleshooting, and repair activities at utility-scale solar power plants with single-axis trackers, central inverters, medium-voltage collection systems, and high-voltage substations. This role is intended for a developing technician with solid field experience who can perform routine work independently and support more advanced electrical, substation, and medium-voltage tasks under the direction of senior technicians, electricians, engineers, or supervisors.
Required Skills and Qualifications
Utility-Scale Solar Plant Experience
- Experience operating, maintaining, and troubleshooting utility-scale solar PV systems.
- Working knowledge of single-axis tracker systems, including tracker controllers, motors, slew drives, dampers, alignment issues, communication alarms, and mechanical failures.
- Experience supporting maintenance and troubleshooting of central inverters, including basic startup, shutdown, fault resets, cooling systems, fans, filters, contactors, alarms, and inverter communication issues.
- Ability to troubleshoot PV strings, combiner boxes, DC feeders, inverters, transformers, and plant auxiliary systems.
- Basic understanding of DC and AC electrical systems used in utility-scale solar power plants.
- Ability to recognize abnormal plant conditions that may affect safety, production, or reliability.
Medium-Voltage and Substation Support
- Experience working around medium-voltage and high-voltage equipment under established safety procedures.
- Familiarity with common substation equipment, including breakers, disconnect switches, transformers, PTs, CTs, relays, batteries, chargers, SCADA cabinets, and control circuits.
- Ability to assist with switching, LOTO, inspections, maintenance, and troubleshooting activities under supervision.
- Ability to read and follow one-line diagrams, equipment drawings, wiring diagrams, and basic control schematics.
- Ability to identify visible equipment deficiencies such as oil leaks, damaged bushings, loose connections, blown fuses, failed heaters, damaged wiring, corrosion, overheating, or abnormal equipment indications.
Medium-Voltage Cable Systems
- Experience assisting with installation, inspection, troubleshooting, and repair of medium-voltage underground cable systems.
- Ability to support medium-voltage cable splicing and terminations under supervision, including cable preparation, insulation removal, semicon removal, conductor preparation, grounding, shielding, and jacket restoration.
- Familiarity with common medium-voltage cable accessories, including cold-shrink terminations, heat-shrink terminations, molded splices, elbows, T-body connectors, dead-break connectors, junction bars, and grounding kits.
- Ability to recognize obvious cable system defects such as damaged jackets, poor workmanship, contamination, moisture intrusion, tracking, overheated terminations, failed connectors, and damaged shields.
- Ability to assist with medium-voltage cable testing, including insulation resistance testing, VLF testing, tan delta testing, continuity checks, phasing, and grounding verification.
- Ability to assist with underground cable fault locating using sectionalizing, thumping, TDR, acoustic pinpointing, and fault confirmation methods.
- Ability to follow cable schedules, collection system layouts, trench maps, splice maps, and as-built drawings.
Electrical Testing and Troubleshooting
- Skilled in basic electrical troubleshooting using digital multimeters, clamp meters, insulation resistance testers, phase rotation meters, and thermal cameras.
- Ability to perform or assist with insulation resistance testing, continuity checks, voltage checks, control circuit troubleshooting, and basic equipment verification.
- Experience troubleshooting low-voltage AC/DC systems, including DC systems up to 1500VDC, and AC systems up to 1000VAC.
- Ability to assist with medium-voltage and high-voltage troubleshooting under qualified supervision.
- Basic understanding of voltage, current, resistance, power, grounding, bonding, fusing, relays, contactors, and protection circuits.
- Ability to troubleshoot basic control power issues, blown fuses, failed relays, loose wiring, auxiliary contacts, and field device failures.
SCADA, Communications, and Controls
- Experience using SCADA systems to monitor alarms, inverter status, tracker status, breaker status, metering data, and plant performance.
- Ability to assist with troubleshooting communication failures involving inverters, trackers, meters, weather stations, relays, RTUs, fiber, Ethernet, serial communication, and network switches.
- Basic understanding of plant control systems, curtailment commands, power factor control, reactive power control, and utility dispatch requirements.
- Ability to review alarm history, equipment status, field indications, and event logs to support troubleshooting.
Safety and Compliance
- Working knowledge of electrical safety practices, including LOTO, arc flash boundaries, shock hazards, test-before-touch, stored energy, and energized work controls.
- Familiarity with NFPA 70E, OSHA electrical safety practices, and site-specific switching and clearance procedures.
- Ability to follow switching orders, clearance procedures, job hazard analyses, energized work permits, and customer safety requirements.
- Ability to work around medium-voltage and high-voltage equipment while maintaining procedural discipline.
- Ability to recognize unsafe conditions and stop work when necessary.
- Understanding of grounding, verification of absence of voltage, stored-energy hazards, and safe work practices around energized or previously energized equipment.
Mechanical and Field Skills
- Ability to inspect, troubleshoot, and repair tracker mechanical systems, torque tubes, dampers, module clamps, gearboxes, motors, linkages, and structural components.
- Experience using hand tools, power tools, torque tools, hydraulic tools, and basic field repair methods.
- Ability to work outdoors in harsh conditions, including heat, wind, dust, uneven terrain, and remote project sites.
- Ability to operate or work around utility vehicles, lifts, skid steers, telehandlers, and other site equipment where qualified.
- Ability to complete field repairs while maintaining safe work practices and acceptable workmanship standards.
Documentation and Reporting
- Ability to document troubleshooting steps, test results, corrective actions, equipment deficiencies, and follow-up recommendations.
- Ability to read and follow OEM manuals, drawings, test reports, commissioning documents, maintenance procedures, and equipment specifications.
- Ability to write clear daily reports, work summaries, inspection findings, and service notes.
- Strong attention to detail when recording equipment names, device numbers, serial numbers, test values, dates, and alarm history.
Teamwork and Development
- Ability to work independently on routine tasks and under direction on advanced technical work.
- Ability to support senior technicians during complex troubleshooting, switching, testing, cable repair, and substation work.
- Strong communication skills with operators, supervisors, engineers, customers, and site personnel.
- Willingness to learn advanced testing, substation maintenance, cable work, and plant troubleshooting.
- Ability to follow company procedures, customer requirements, and safe work practices.
Preferred Skills
- NETA testing experience or similar electrical testing background.
- Experience assisting with relay testing, relay settings review, event records, or protection troubleshooting.
- Experience with SEL, GE, Siemens, ABB, SMA, Sungrow, Power Electronics, Nextracker, Array Technologies, or similar equipment.
- Experience with thermal imaging inspections.
- Experience supporting commissioning, energization, outage work, or corrective maintenance.
- Familiarity with NERC, PRC-005, utility interconnection requirements, and power plant compliance tasks.
- Medium-voltage cable splicing and termination training or supervised field experience.
- Experience with 15 kV, 25 kV, and 35 kV shielded power cable systems.
- Experience assisting with underground collection system fault locating and emergency cable repair work.
- CDL, forklift, aerial lift, or telehandler certification.
- OSHA 10, OSHA 30, NFPA 70E training, CPR/First Aid, or equivalent safety certifications.
Pay: $30.11 - $55.00 per hour
Benefits:
- 401(k)
- Dental insurance
- Health insurance
- Paid time off
- Parental leave
- Professional development assistance
- Relocation assistance
- Vision insurance
Work Location: In person
