Paul Brown, PE · Power Systems
Independent Researcher & Consulting Engineer
Specialized power systems engineering for transmission owners, developers, and engineering firms — from protection and control to transmission line studies and research-driven analysis.
Focus Areas
Protection & Control
Transmission and substation protection: relay settings and coordination, scheme design, commissioning procedures and functional checks, standards and templates, and troubleshooting after energization — plus review of settings prepared by others and mentoring for protection engineers.
Transmission Line Studies
AC interference with parallel facilities, including induced neutral-to-earth voltage on distribution lines; corona and EMF, lightning performance, and line parameter studies.
Independent Technical Review
Owner's engineer review of studies and designs prepared by others — checking assumptions, methods, and conclusions.
Transients & Specialized Studies
Switching transients and the one-off studies that don't fit a standard scope of work.
Methods & Computational Tooling
Custom Python toolchains, automation, and reproducible calculation workflows.
Applied Research
Developing an in-house approach for problems a client's practice doesn't yet cover, grounded in standards, the literature, and industry practice.
Approach
Every project starts with the decision the work needs to support. The analysis is sized to the questions it needs to answer.
Understand
Clarify the client's question, the outcome they need, and the constraints on schedule, data, and budget.
Plan
Identify the applicable standards and methods, and agree on a scope that answers the question directly.
Analyze
Apply established software and calculation methods, building custom tools where they add value.
Deliver
Clear findings and recommendations, with assumptions and calculations documented for review and archival.
Selected Experience
Includes work performed with Nebraska Public Power District and Peak Power Engineering.
Protection & Control Transmission and substation relaying, 34.5–345 kV
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Major New Transmission Substations
Protective relay settings for multiple major new transmission substation projects at a public power utility.
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Wind Farm Interconnection Substations
Relay settings and oversight for 56–300 MW wind farm substations, including post-energization troubleshooting.
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Switchyard & Substation for a Generation & Transmission Cooperative
Schematics, panel wiring diagrams, and protective relay settings.
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Multi-Substation Utility Program
Relay setting development for 40+ relays across several substation projects.
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Relay Setting Review & Mentoring
Reviewed relay settings prepared by other engineers and mentored engineers developing settings across multiple substation projects.
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Standard Setting Calculation & Trip Check Templates
Developed standard templates that reduced redundancy across similar protection applications.
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Relay Engineering Access & Synchrophasors
Led adoption of Ethernet engineering access to protective relays; contributed to a synchrophasor roadmap and PMU architecture development.
Transmission Line Studies Induction, AC interference, EMF, lightning, and transients
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Owner's Engineer for a Transmission Line Developer
Independent review of third-party transient studies; studies of parallel distribution and subtransmission facilities and nearby substations.
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Texas Transmission Lines
AC interference, corona and field effects, line parameters, lightning outage rate, and tower grounding studies.
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Ontario Transmission Line
Induction and ground potential rise on a nearby distribution line, where stray voltage at livestock operations was a concern; OPGW fault duty calculations.
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Colorado Transmission Line
Corona, field effects, and lightning performance; induction and ground potential rise on a nearby distribution line.
Background
Paul Brown, PE
Independent Researcher & Consulting Engineer
Paul has more than 20 years of power systems experience across utility, consulting, and research roles, including Nebraska Public Power District, Peak Power Engineering, and INESC Porto. His deepest expertise is in two areas: transmission protection, and transmission line induction and field effects. He does his best work on technically challenging problems that call for new design or analysis methods.
His doctoral research at Middle East Technical University (METU) on forecasting and optimization for agricultural microgrids has involved years of scientific Python development — the foundation for the custom tooling he brings to client work.
Credentials
- Professional Engineer — Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin
- NCEES Record (licensure in other states as needed)
- PhD candidate, EEE — METU
- MS Electrical Engineering — Univ. of Porto
- BS Electrical Engineering — Iowa State Univ.
Selected Publications
- Bayesian probabilistic photovoltaic power forecasting and stochastic model-predictive control for an agricultural microgrid. Solar Energy, 2026.
- Lightweight photovoltaic forecasting method for agricultural microgrids. ELECO, 2023.
- Operational optimization of an agricultural microgrid. UPEC, 2022.
- Optimization of pumped storage capacity in an isolated power system with large renewable penetration. IEEE Trans. Power Systems, 2008.
Have a problem that needs a careful look? Let's talk.
- Emailpaul at copperwoodconsulting dot com
- LinkedInpauldbrownpe
- ORCID0000-0001-5753-0449
- GitHubpdb5627