Senior Power Plant Engineer

Vicinity Energy, Inc.; Philadelphia (Philadelphia County); On-site; USD 140,000 - 190,000; Full time

Job summary

Vicinity Energy in Philadelphia seeks a Senior Power Plant Engineer to lead site engineering for its 163 MW plant. The role directs combustion/steam turbine maintenance, sets standards for procedures, and guides engineering, operations, and maintenance staff.

You will mentor engineers, manage capital projects, and partner with vendors to optimize performance and reliability while ensuring safety and compliance.

Qualifications

• B.S. in Engineering or equivalent 4 year technical degree.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience in the utility industry with engineering theory and design criteria.
• Experience in combustion turbine and steam turbine maintenance practices.
• Experience with Plant DCS, preferably Emerson Ovation.
• Experience with thermal performance analysis and real-time tools like OSIsoft PI.
• Strong instrumentation and controls background.
• Strong communication skills to coordinate O&M activities.
• Experience with real-time performance management software like OSIsoft PI.

Responsibilities

• Provide engineering management of Capital improvement projects (design, bid, construction) within budget and guarantees.
• Lead technical expertise for outages of combustion turbine, steam turbine, and boiler units.
• Interface with industry experts for plant systems and equipment.
• Review planned maintenance and procurement impact with O&M, engineering, and procurement.
• Track plant performance, heat rate, and efficiency; identify upgrades.
• Use plant historian and DCS data to troubleshoot and optimize unit performance.
• Develop contracts/work scopes for external contractors to maximize efficiency.
• Perform reliability studies to maximize availability and capacity.

Skills

Strong communication

Problem solving

Time management

Education

B.S. in Engineering or equivalent 4 year technical degree

Tools

Emerson Ovation system

OSIsoft PI

Maximo CMMS

Job description

Summary

The Senior (Sr.) Power Plant Engineer is the senior technical lead for site engineering at Vicinity’s 163 MW combined-cycle plant in Philadelphia, supporting day-to-day Operations and Maintenance and serving as the lead for all combustion turbine and steam turbine maintenance. Reporting to the Regional Director of Engineering, the role provides technical direction to engineering, operations, and maintenance staff across boilers, power plant auxiliary systems, steam turbine/rotating equipment, I&C, electrical, and pollution control, with additional support for plant chemistry and the water plant. This position also leads and mentors engineers and technicians on project teams. The Sr. Power Plant Engineer establishes standards and policies for pollution control, quality control, operating procedures, and equipment installation, modification, testing, inspection, and maintenance in accordance with engineering principles and safety regulations, and works closely with vendors, suppliers, and customers. This is a full-time exempt position.

Responsibilities

• Provide engineering management of Capital improvement projects, including design, bid, and construction and ensure budgetary guidelines and contractual guarantees are met.
• Serve as the technical expert for combustion turbine, steam turbine, and boiler outages. Assists in preparing long-term Outage planning.
• Interface with industry technical experts for all plant systems and equipment.
• Works with the Maintenance, Operations and Engineering departments to review planned maintenance and plant engineering projects with regards to procurement of materials and services.
• Track and monitor overall plant performance including but not limited to the combustion and steam turbines and HRSG. Identify, trend, and analyze plant heat rate and plant efficiencies. Identify upgrades, modifications, and enhancements in equipment and operations that maximize profit to the company.
• Use plant historian and DCS data to troubleshoot operating issues and optimize unit performance.
• Reviews critical asset needs and existing Preventative Maintenance tasks and updates procedures and plans.
• Acts as lead Manager for site RCM program. Analyze equipment failures, determine root causes, recommend recovery plans, and impose cost effective solutions to prevent reoccurrence.
• Utilizes Maximo (CMMS) to track preventative and corrective maintenance and refine PM plans and task descriptions. Responsible for tracking forced outages, loss of generation and conducting root cause analysis on the cause of failure. This includes any necessary reporting requirements, internal and external.
• Assists in the investigation of plant problems, incidents, accidents, and unusual events, and provide analyses, recommendations, reports, and appropriate follow-up plans.
• Develop and administer contracts and work scope for external contractors to ensure maximum efficiency in the use of plant and contractor personnel.

• Perform reliability studies to ensure that the plant’s availability and capacity factors are maximized.

Basic Qualifications

• B.S. in Engineering or equivalent 4 year technical degree.
• Minimum 8 years’ experience working as engineer in the utility industry, with a sound knowledge of engineering theory and design criteria.

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience in combustion turbine and steam turbine maintenance practices and procedures.

• Experience with Plant Distributed Control Systems, preferably Emerson Ovation system.

• Experience with power plant thermal performance analysis and monitoring, including real-time tools such as OSIsoft PI.
• Strong instrumentation and controls background.
• Strong communication skills to help coordinate O&M team activities.
• Experience with real-time performance management software such as OSIsoft PI systems to monitor plant heat rate and efficiency.

Other Qualifications

• Strong communication skills to help coordinate O&M team activities.
• Excellent time management skills and the ability to problem solve.
• Must be highly organized, with excellent attention to detail.

Physical Requirements

• Must submit to company provided pre-employment physical exam and drug screening.
• Must qualify to wear a respirator.
• Must possess a valid driver license in good standing in order to operate a company vehicle. Must have and maintain a driving record meeting the standards of the company.
• Must be capable of wearing protective equipment in the performance of some duties (e.g. hard hats, safety glasses, air masks, ear protection, chemical suits, hot gloves and high voltage protective equipment, etc.).
• Ability to hear and understand audible alarms, detect changes in noise levels of rotating equipment and portable radio communication.
• Ability to lift heavy equipment and carry materials up and down stairs with the capacity of lifting up to and including 50 pounds.