Utility & Power Engineering, Rates, and Regulation FAQs

Professional service firms like Tangibl support clients throughout the entire capital project lifecycle—from concept and approval through to detailed engineering, commissioning, and project closeout.

Onsite engagement ensures engineers’ and planners’ take field conditions into account to deliver cost-effective and timely results.

Engineering consultants help asset owners modernize their infrastructure and improve reliability through design, planning, and project execution support, including 13kV circuit rearrangement, switchgear upgrades, etc.

It involves loop scheme design, digital microprocessor relays, optical fiber integration, and advanced sectionalizing devices to improve circuit performance, reduce outage frequency and duration.

Professional service firms like Tangibl have a rate consulting team that handles cost of service studies, depreciation studies, cost-of-capital, lead-lag and rate of return assessments for utilities, and reactive power compensation filings for all renewable generators, including solar and wind.

As more renewable resources connect to the grid, reactive power becomes essential to maintain voltage support. Resources need to be compensated for the capability to provide this service, as well as the service itself.

Professional service firms like Tangibl provide expertise to thermal resources including electrical test plans, switchyard asset replacement, facility ratings, electrical maintenance strategies, and high- and medium-voltage electrical technical support for generation facilities across organized markets like PJM, NYISO and ISO New England.

General regulatory consulting helps businesses navigate complex regulatory rules. Tangibl provides industry-specific stakeholder representation, ISO/RTO committee support, and early‑stage interconnection consulting.  We leverage our technical expertise to provide project-specific analysis, including injection studies, steady-state and dynamic network analysis and preliminary assessments of direct-connect facilities.

Detailed substation engineering design covers the full set of engineering deliverables required to construct or modify an electric substation, including one-line diagrams, protection and control schematics, civil and structural drawings, and relay settings. Tangibl provides these services for substations from 13kV to 765kV.

Cable rating studies determine the maximum current a buried cable can safely carry given soil thermal resistivity, burial depth, and adjacent heat sources. These studies are required for NERC FAC-008 compliance and to optimize infrastructure investment.

Pilot wire relaying is a line protection scheme that uses a communication channel (historically a copper pilot wire) to simultaneously trip both ends of a transmission line on internal faults. Replacing aging pilot wire schemes with modern fiber-optic or digital systems improves reliability and reduces maintenance costs.

PJM interconnection support helps power generators and developers submit to, navigate, and complete PJM’s interconnection queue process, including network impact studies, interconnection agreement negotiations, and stakeholder representation in PJM committees.

Hyperscale data centers can require 100–500MW of new load, triggering substation expansions, new transmission lines, and distribution upgrades. Utilities and developers need engineering and regulatory support to site and interconnect these loads efficiently.

A depreciation study establishes the useful service lives and net salvage percentages of utility plant assets, which are used to calculate annual depreciation expense for ratemaking purposes. FERC and state commissions require these studies to be filed periodically and as part of rate cases.

An electric rate case is a regulatory proceeding in which a utility applies to its state public utility commission or FERC for approval of new electric rates, supported by a cost-of-service study, depreciation study, cost-of-capital analysis, and testimony.

A reciprocating engine array is a power plant that uses multiple natural-gas-fired internal combustion engines in parallel to deliver peaking capacity. REAs can start within 5–10 minutes and ramp quickly, making them valuable for frequency regulation and capacity markets.

765kV is an extra-high-voltage (EHV) transmission level capable of moving large amounts of power over long distances with lower losses. It is being reconsidered for new long-haul corridors as renewable energy resources — often sited far from load centers — require bulk power transmission infrastructure.

SMRs are nuclear reactors with output below 300MW that can be factory-manufactured and deployed at sites too small or constrained for conventional nuclear plants. Engineering consultants support SMR developers with site assessments, interconnection studies, and Owner’s Engineer services.