Delta Graduate Profiles

Peter Cowan 

Bachelor of Engineering, majoring in Power Systems

What does your role involve on a day to day basis?

The tasks involved are varied, and include Medium Voltage sub-transmission design, 33/11kV substation design, power system protection design, planning of capital projects, writing project specifications for tendering and project management. 

What do you enjoy most about your role? 

The role allows creativity as it involves a great deal of design work. Seeing the end result is particularly satisfying. I like it when something you have designed comes to fruition and it is what you wanted. For example, I recently programmed some protection relays. A few months later when an irrigator accidentally sprayed a water jet onto the power lines, the protection I’d programmed tripped successfully and prevented any damage to the power lines.

What's it like working for Delta? 

Things I enjoy about working here is the fact I get exposed to a wide range of Power Systems Engineering activities. One of the more enjoyable jobs I had was to implement a power systems protection scheme for the recently established Cardrona zone substation. This involved starting from fault current analysis at the beginning, circuit breaker grading in the middle, through to programming the protection relays associated with each circuit breaker at the end of the project. Often graduate engineering positions would not allow this level of involvement.

Delta has been very supportive with training and development. Since starting at Delta two years ago I have been working toward my CPEng and expect it will take me another 2 years. It usually takes around 4 years to gain enough experience to apply. I have recently started work on a correspondence “Power Systems Protection” course which takes 2 – 3 years to complete. Last year I completed the National Diploma in Buisness (Level 5) which was organised by the People and Performance department. I found this course particularly useful as not only did I get all the useful information from the course, but was working along other (more senior) managers from various divisions in Delta.