Ampirical Solutions provides engineering and related services to the high-voltage electrical transmission infrastructure marketplace. The scope of these services can be design engineering only, or the complete engineering / procurement / construction (EPC) of electrical facilities such as substations, switchyards, and transmission lines.
Additional services include project management, construction management, relay settings, load flow studies, specification and standards development, and other engineering and ancillary services required for the bulk delivery of electrical power.
Engineering services for substations, switchyards, and transmission lines
Professional engineering services consist primarily of design engineering for substations, switchyards, and transmission lines, including substation design; protective relaying, SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), automation / HMI, and metering design; site work and foundations design; and design of towers, poles, stands, and supports.
Ampirical personnel are licensed professional engineers in all 50 states, allowing the firm to offer the complete spectrum of design services required by this market niche. Our engineers hold professional licensure in electrical, civil, and structural engineering disciplines.
Ampirical engineers are very comfortable learning a customer’s standards and specifications. Our desire is to engineer a project just as a company’s internal engineering staff would, so the field groups, whether they are construction or maintenance, see a very familiar installation.
3-D modeling of high-voltage substations, lines, and relay panels
Ampirical utilizes several software packages that increase quality and efficiency when it comes to power systems design. By having all substation components modeled to very tight tolerances in its database, engineers and designers can complete the substation physical design much faster than by hand. The software then runs clash tests to check all clearances, produces a bill of material to be used for procurement, and cuts all of the two dimensional drawings in the format used by the client.
In addition to improving the accuracy of the initial design, the software allows customer changes to be handled much more expeditiously, since only the model needs to be updated for revised drawings to be generated. The client can also view the model and its underlying layers, providing customer personnel with the ability to see the substation prior to its construction.
Our modeling software also produces intelligent schematics for protective relay panels. The wiring diagrams to be submitted to panel manufacturers are automatically produced from both the schematics and the customized criteria input to the system. Transmission line design software works in conjunction with GPS-based imagery software to depict the details of a client’s actual project location.
EPC (or turnkey or design / build) of transmission infrastructure
Ampirical provides all manner of project delivery services for high-voltage transmission, such as engineer / procure / construct (EPC), design / build (D/B), and other turnkey methods like target pricing. Because our engineers specify the required equipment as part of their design efforts, we can also provide engineering and procurement services (E/P) to construction contractors.
Ampirical holds both engineering and contractor’s licenses that allow us to act as the sole source for customers requiring T&D facilities. We have strong relationships with both material manufacturers and construction contractors that give us the ability to assemble excellent project teams, wherever the sites are located throughout the country.
Our diligence in the initial scoping and estimating of a project, coupled with our experience in transmission and substation design and project management, means we can successfully deliver EPC projects in terms of both schedule and budget. Our history includes projects for investor-owned utilities, municipal systems, electrical cooperatives, industrial customers, independent power producers, wind farms, solar installations, data centers, and more.
Power system studies, grounding, and other engineering services
Ampirical has the ability to perform a variety of technical studies on various aspects of the power system. We can provide fault studies, arc flash, load flows, and other system simulations. Relay settings for both microprocessor-based and electromechanical devices are offered.
Our substation engineers use the highest accuracy meter to determine actual ground conditions at a substation (soil resistivity, grid impedance, and touch and step potential), and then download the data points into a specialized program. This produces a numerical and graphical description of the margin of safety for a particular ground grid.
Engineering Power-ful Solutions
At Ampirical, this is not just a slogan; we truly enjoy the opportunity to work with a client that is struggling with a lack of resources, a complex substation retrofit, or tight schedules. Providing solutions to such problems coupled with strong customer service is what makes us different.
Simply contact us and we will be happy to answer all of your questions about your project.
