Power Engineering Alliance (PEA) bursary holder Nathaniel Dunnett has learnt a lot about the workforce in recent years, including that "you can only plan for 60 per cent of your time".

"You can't bank on having 24 hours in the day any more; I'm getting a bit too old for that," the electrical engineering (Co-op) student told a PEA networking function at Central Queensland University's Rockhampton Campus recently.

Nathaniel Dunnett

The former Gladstone student and now resident of CQU's Capricornia College told the function that, as well as being able to draw on the experiences of his father and brother (both in the electricity industry), his work experience placements at Stanwell Power Station and Ergon Energy had been invaluable in preparing him for a future career.

Mr Dunnett, who gained his PEA bursary in 2005, said the 2 placements had also given him the chance to experience the range of sectors, from generation to transmission and from distribution to utilisation.

He said his first placement at Stanwell had been a "real eye-opener" since his only previous work background was with McDonalds and he did not have much technical knowledge.

"What I took away was an insight into the way the company operates, how it fits in to the power industry, its generation status and some of the types of work available," he said.

"I was only there for a few months and even though I could not do much technical work I could do projects by myself. I did a project upgrading some battery rooms and got to do a report and work with another mechanical engineer and with Australian standards.

At Ergon Energy, Mr Dunnett was able to work in the role of distribution planning and could plan for augmenting the network for up to 10 years in advance.

"One of the planning studies involved some distribution works for a new substation. It was on a mill site and the mill was looking to expand their site and Ergon was looking to expand their sub-station because of increasing load and new developments and I looked at moving it to a new location of mutual benefit for both parties as well as to cater for the load.

"I  had to look at those sites and the different feeder routes for the different areas. I looked at different network configurations and constraints, got to talk to town planners to find out what the new developments were, got to do demographic studies and also got to see the network."

Mr Dunnett said both work placements were beneficial in terms of developing his work skills, teamwork, experience in working with a variety of people  (from engineers to electricians and contractors) and communication skills.

He was able to do presentations and reports and obtain quotes and also got to utilise software for time management and budgets.

"We also learned about problem solving and I was able to get a feel for the workplace values and how to select equipment for the right job."

The Power Engineering Alliance (PEA) networking function was focused on encouraging and nurturing new talent to support the future of the electricity industry.

Among the core PEA functions is a bursary program supported by Powerlink, Energex, Ergon Energy, ABB Australia, Tarong Energy, API, Areva T&D, CS Energy, Maunsell Australia, PB Power and Stanwell Corporation.