Grid Operations interview prep.

Behavioural questions to expect

1. Walk me through your background + grid operations experience.
2. Tell me about a real-time event or shift you've handled.
3. Why grid operations vs other power-systems paths (planning, protection, generation)?
4. Why this control room - ISO / RTO vs transmission utility vs distribution operator?
5. Why the firm?
6. What's your read on our footprint + recent operational events?
7. Tell me what you understand about our NERC compliance + reliability posture.
8. Walk me through how you'd respond to a major contingency - generator trip or line loss.

Technical concepts to master

• Real-time operations + AGC + balance

  ACE (Area Control Error) · AGC + regulation · Frequency response + primary / secondary / tertiary · Operating reserves · Interchange + tag

• Contingency analysis + N-1 + IROL / SOL

  N-1 + credible contingency · N-1-1 + boundary cases · SOL (System Operating Limit) · IROL (Interconnection Reliability Operating Limit) · Redispatch + congestion management

• Switching + clearance + protection

  Switching order + peer-check · Clearance + hold tag + lockout / tagout · Protection coordination + relaying · Synchronising + paralleling · Special Protection Schemes (SPS / RAS)

• Restoration + black start + emergency operations

  EEA (Energy Emergency Alert) levels · Manual + automatic load shed · Black start + cranking paths · System restoration sequence · Loss of control centre + backup centre

Practical drills

• RTCA flags that loss of the 500 kV line between substations A + B would cause a 115 kV parallel line to exceed its emergency rating by 8% within 5 minutes. Current flow on the 500 kV is 1,800 MW. Walk through your response.
• A 1,200 MW unit trips offline at peak load. Frequency dips to 59.85 Hz; ACE swings to -800 MW. AGC is responding. Walk through your next 15 minutes.
• A storm has caused a cascading outage that blacked out 40% of your control area, including 3 major load centres. Two black-start units are available. Walk through your first 4 hours of restoration.

Smart-question anchors

• Footprint + registered functions - BA / TOP / RC / DOP role + territory + interfaces
• Reliability metrics + recent events - SAIDI / SAIFI, CPS1 / BAAL, EEAs, major restorations
• NERC audit posture - recent findings, CIP maturity, FERC enforcement history
• EMS + SCADA + AGC generation - vendor + age + RTCA + state estimator maturity
• Renewables + storage + DER integration - net-load, duck-curve, ramping, reserves implications

Sourced from

NERC Reliability Standards (BAL / TOP / IRO / EOP / PRC / CIP / FAC / VAR / COM / PER) · NERC System Operator Certification + PER-005 training program · FERC Form 715 + ISO / RTO operating procedures (PJM, MISO, ERCOT, CAISO, SPP, NYISO, ISO-NE) · IEEE Power & Energy Society publications + Bergen-Vittal + Wood-Wollenberg power-systems textbooks · NERC Event Analysis reports + DOE OE-417 emergency reports