First Ph.D. in HELB’s team

At only 33 years of age, Goran Jurišić is the Head of development and research department at HELB, has a Ph.D. and more than 10 years of experience in the profession. He joined HELB team as a student, and since then he has gone through different job positions: from site testing engineer, project manager, energy efficiency engineer, relay protection engineer, all the way to the Head of the department. In spite of his full schedule, he is always at the disposal for his colleagues and ready to help, so he’s always in cooperation with colleagues in the field, as well as the technical office, human resources, marketing, and sales. Besides his expertise, professionalism and great knowledge, he is also a warm and positive person. His motivation, desire for new challenges and pushing beyond his own boundaries brought to HELB innovativeness and contributed to its development and vision of the digital engineering company.

You recently got your Ph.D. in the field of power engineering on a very current topic: “Protection function performance testing methods in communication-based digital substation systems”. Can you clarify what that is and what the contributions of that doctoral work are?

I enrolled in his doctoral studies in 2011 with wish was to get acquainted and be up to date with all the upcoming technologies related to substations through this project. Since HELB is an engineering company involved in electrical plant construction, from design to commissioning, the question arises as to how everything will be done in 10 or 20 years from now and how best to prepare for the technological changes that are coming. The answer is – a digital substation and digital power grid. There is less emphasis on individual engineering, assembly and testing, and more on an entire range of digitized activities for the substation construction. How to optimize field activities and increase the performance and quality of our services in the office and construction sites? How to test a digital current transformer without the classical secondary current circuit? How to test a substation in which the information is exchange only via the communication bus, without any hardwired signals? What knowledge, skills and equipment will be needed for the construction of future substations? These are the questions that motivated me to enroll in this study and do the research in this field.

There are three scientific contributions to this project::

Hardware in the loop“ simulation and test model of substations in classical, hybrid and digital topology.
Mathematical reference simulation model of the distribution system for fault transient waveform generation.
Base reference parameters necessary for testing numerical protection systems in the digital substations.

Is it currently applicable in practice?

Although the standard has been in place since 2004, the digitization of the power grid has not yet happened. Technological developments have made possible, however, a significant step towards realization still hasn’t been made. We need to be aware that the digitization will have a deep impact on the way how we design and build substations and power plants.

You are head of development and research department. Which projects is your team currently working on and can you name some of the most interesting projects you’ve worked on?

We are developing new technologies that can be applied to electrical engineering. It is the most challenging job for me, working on new and different technologies that evolve over time. There is no routine and you always have new projects. I would say that we currently have several different development directions. The first direction is in the field of augmented reality in power engineering, not only as a product but also as a service we can offer. A new way to connect our field engineers and technicians, with the technical support in the headquarters. We are testing different technological platforms for augmented reality, from HoloLens, Vuzix Blades, to other platforms. We have established the AR communicational mechanisms and are working on the implementation phase on a pilot project. The second development area is the use of IIOT (Industrial Internet Of Things) in power engineering. Unlike the general purposes Internet Of Things, the IIoT must have a significantly higher level of security and reliability. The third research is based on the digital substation and how to use data for further analysis. How to analyze and visualize the data.

One of the most interesting projects I’ve been working on is one in China, where we have been testing the relay protection system on one of the most advanced ships for production, storage, and reloading of oil (Floating Production Storage and Offloading ). I was a relatively inexperienced engineer, but confident enough and eager for new experiences and knowledge. I did not know the exact scope of project activities, but I was willing to learn. Before that HELB did not actively work on relay protection, but I had the desire to dive into it and that project was the crucial beginning. There have been a lot of projects that are interesting and each has its own charms and something special about it, but I will remember this one for a long time.

You got a reward for HELB’s “Best Colleague” – what does it mean to you and why do you think your colleagues have chosen you?

Each of us would be happy to get an award like that, so of course, I’m happy. I think the fact that I’ve gone through a variety of job positions in the company has contributed to it, people know me, and additionally, I’m cooperating with a lot of different departments, while the others in the office don’t have much collaboration with the rest of the company. I like to help others when I can and never have I refused to help anyone, so I think that has contributed to them choosing me for this reward. I am glad that the company is promoting and evaluating such a set of behavior and skills and that we are learning from each other. I’m especially glad that of those 16 rewards, most went to colleagues in the field because they are our foundation.