ELECTRICIAN, ELECTRIC UTILITY
Electrician, Electric Utility is a competitive local-government title, the kind you test for: the exam result, not a hiring manager's pick, decides where you land in line.
What it takes is 3 years of relevant experience.
How to apply
This title is filled by competitive examination.
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Electrician, Electric Utility is a local service title. It is filled by the counties, municipalities, authorities and other employers that have adopted civil service under Title 11A, not by State departments. Those employers set pay by ordinance or contract rather than from a State salary schedule, which is why most local titles carry no salary range here.
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Official job specification
The text below is the official specification published by the New Jersey Civil Service Commission. The plain-language summary and analysis above are derived from it by NJ Civil Service Navigator. Source: the official specification page at NJ CSC.
Definition
Under direction, repairs and maintains electric generating, transmission, and distribution equipment and circuits at electric generating stations, switch yards, and distribution substations; does other related duties as required.
Examples of work
- Utilizing electrical test equipment, troubleshoots defective equipment to determine the cause of malfunction or failure.
- Informs plant personnel of necessary equipment down-time requiring changes from normal generating and transmission equipment operation to maintain uninterrupted service.
- Repairs and replaces equipment such as relays, switches, supervisory controls, and indicating and recording instruments.
- Tests and repairs switchboard and equipment circuitry, interpreting wiring diagrams to trace and connect numerous wires carrying current for independent functions.
- Cleans and repairs brushes, commutators, windings, and bearings of generators, motors, and converters.
- Tests and maintains transmission and distribution equipment such as meters, relays, circuit breakers, and transformers.
- Tests insulators and bushings of equipment for power leakage by imposing specified voltage on insulation through testing apparatus and calculating insulation loss.
- Tests oil in circuit breakers and transformers for dielectric strength.
- Repairs or rebuilds oil circuit breakers, transformers, and lightning arrestors by replacing defective parts.
- Disconnects voltage regulators for removal by other workers by loosening bolts and screws, and connects replacement regulator to high-voltage line.
- Periodically replenishes oil in circuit breakers and transformers not needing repair.
- Checks lock-out and tag-out switches before repairing or replacing equipment to ensure power cutoffs.
- Repairs electrical machinery such as generators and converters.
- Installs, maintains, and repairs underground electric systems (service laterals and secondary and primary feeds).
- Installs transformers and terminates cable for installation. Records monthly substation readings.
- Maintains and repairs substation equipment (breakers, switches) testing relays, and making visual inspection of insulators.
- Performs various general electrical maintenance and repair (service panels and basic and complex wiring).
- Installs, maintains, and repairs traffic controllers (electronic and mechanical) and traffic lighting.
- Installs, tests, repairs, and maintains single and three phase meters, wiring, and equipment.
- Installs, tests, repairs, and maintains generators, transformers, converters, regulators, switches, circuit breakers, recording instruments, control systems, and other circuit elements.
- Dismantles, repairs, and assembles generators, synchronous motors, motor generators, and rotary converters.
- Installs, alters, and replaces generation and distribution equipment in power plants, substations, transformer vaults, or distribution centers.
- Cleans, adjusts, and repairs electrical equipment such as air and oil circuit breakers and remotely controlled supervisory and telemetering equipment.
- Constructs and installs rigid conduits.
- Pulls in conductors, assembles buss bars, phases out and connects conductors, splices cables, and seals connections.
- Troubleshoots distribution circuits and generating and controlling equipment to locate and correct causes of outages and improper operation.
- Makes emergency repairs to power lines and equipment sometimes working on distribution systems when they are energized.
- Will be required to learn to utilize various types of electronic and/or manual recording and information systems used by the agency, office, or related units.
Experience
Three (3) years of experience in the installation, repair, and maintenance of electric generating, transmission, and distribution equipment and circuits.
License
Appointees will be required to possess a driver's license valid in New Jersey only if the operation of a vehicle, rather than employee mobility, is necessary to perform essential duties of the position.
Knowledge, skills and abilities
- Knowledge of electrical theory such as power factor, transformers, series and parallel circuits, line loading, line losses, and dielectric or conductive properties of materials.
- Knowledge of procedures used in installing, repairing, and maintaining electrical generators, transformers, converters, regulators, switches, circuit breakers, and other electric generating transmission and distribution equipment.
- Knowledge of safety precautions to be taken in working with high voltage and energized circuits.
- Ability to calculate circuit values and determine when operating limitations of equipment are exceeded.
- Ability to plan and carry through operations in the installation, troubleshooting, and repair of high-voltage generating, controlling, and distributing systems.
- Ability to use instruments such as insulation mugger, oscillator, and tone detector to locate faults in underground cables or to use phasing stick or phase rotation meter to check out rotation of cables before switching into a hot circuit.
- Ability to read and understand circuit diagrams of interconnections such as generators, buses, switches, and circuit breakers in a powerhouse or the feeders, substations, transformers, and interconnections of a primary distribution system to diagnose problems in the electrical system.
- Ability to diagnose problems and determine corrective action for electric power equipment such as switch gear, transformer banks, and circuit breakers in powerhouses and substations, and underground and overhead power lines.
- Ability to install, repair, and maintain commonly used electric power generating and distributing equipment.
- Ability to replace and adjust mechanical contacts and tripping and time-delay intervals of circuit breakers and relays using feeler gauges, dressing tools, and timing devices.
- Ability to determine types and sizes of wire, conduits, transformers, and methods of installation and repair to ensure proper and safe operation of electric distribution system.
- Ability to learn to utilize various types of electronic and/or manual recording and information systems used by the agency, office, or related units.
- Ability to read, write, understand, and communicate in English sufficiently to perform the duties of this position. American Sign Language or Braille may also be considered as acceptable forms of communication.
- Persons with mental or physical disabilities are eligible as long as they can perform essential functions of the job with or without reasonable accommodation. If the accommodation cannot be made because it would cause the employer undue hardship, such persons may not be eligible.
Note
The examples of work for this title are for illustrative purposes only. A particular position using this title may not perform all duties listed in this job specification. Conversely, all duties performed on the job may not be listed.