I’m Victor Love,

I recently retired from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. My journey and venture into revenue energy and power quality metering began many years ago while growing up in the agricultural environment of farming and ranching. Catapulted into such an exciting environment of ever-changing technology in agricultural equipment with gears and their respective ratios, seed and plant population, agriculture chemical compositions and their applications, tractor mechanics, and of course electricity and responsibility to edify myself in learning new things. Shadowing my dad in the natural gas plant where he was employed, I received firsthand observation of how natural gas was compressed and processed into other useful products such as fuel. Along with that my dad also had the opportunity to work in the gas plant generator operations which we called the boiler house. The generator building housed three Westinghouse steam driven generators, one for each of the three plants and their accompanying houses. Our electricity and natural gas services were freely a benefit for dad and other employees of the gas company. Shadowing my dad, I saw first-hand boiler operations techniques, how to run them and most fascinating for me to see was my dad using the old Sync scope indicator prior to closing and bringing a generator online, almost a lost art in today’s world of electricity generation operations.

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Later, after becoming involved with revenue metering at local Cap Rock Electric Coop I had the invitation to return to the very gas plant where my dad had worked to help trouble shoot their revenue metering and power quality problems on their new generation power plants. Five new Waukesha natural gas driven engines with generators had been installed and running full throttle with zero kW registered on their panel meter. Quickly finding the problem and providing the solution for Western Gas Processors as the shunts on the current transformers were still in the closed position, and I provided training instructions and reasons why the CT secondaries are shunted prior to shipping in the closed position.

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My next exciting venture after leaving the farm was in the oil fields of West Texas where I was employed with a local tubular goods company, this company sold oil well casing and well heads. This also brought forth some interesting parts of the oil industry such as drilling rigs digging deep into the earth where oil and gas could be extracted and made into useful products. Then taking a position as a gauger for Koch oil learning measurements of tanks, checking the specific gravity and temperature of crude oil prior to purchasing.

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Realizing I needed something else to satisfy my desire to learn and grow into a more robust career, I applied at the local electric cooperative, Cap Rock Electric Coop, where I started out as a meter reader which was a fun job taking exception of being bitten by a dog. I made friends quickly with customers and employees, which led me to asking questions of the meter technician about the proper operation of demand resetting on the meters and about the diverse types of meters installed on the coop power system. The technician asked me if I would like to learn metering as a new craft, I gave him my interest of yes, I would.

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The technician put in his retirement papers that day. I began training on each Friday my day off each week at no pay to learn the trade. The meter test board I first trained on was manufactured in 1943 by the States Company. After the technician’s retirement I was introduced to Mr. Ben Fly, a retired metering superintendent from Texas Electric Service company, which is now Oncor Electric Delivery. Ben told me he would teach everything he knew about electric metering if I wanted to learn it, and if I didn’t want to learn it, I would need to stay out of his way because he wouldn’t tell me anything. I told him I wanted to know why the wires went where they did and a whole host of other questions. Teach me he did, I began my apprenticeship that consisted of 3 days a week, one on one, eight hours per day for two years rain or shine. This onsite classroom training was authentic and invaluable, which carried me into the future to the Lower Colorado River Authority and eventually Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories. I still serve as instructor in the art of metering and hold the position of Past President of the Southwest Electrical Meter Association founded in 1921. I also participate in many meters schools around the country.

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While at LCRA I installed, supported, evaluated and proved accuracy revenue meters for use on the LCRA system. I eagerly took on the task of evaluating one of the first ever SEL-734 meters built for use on the LCRA system. I kept SEL R&D engineers informed of the meters evaluation progress, even building a small half meter panel so that I could temporarily install the meter anywhere on the LCRA system in series with the existing billing meter for further evaluation. I chose to do this so we could establish and push the new SEL meter to undergo all real-world conditions that included environmental exposure, extreme temperatures, spikes in system voltage, sags, outages and high voltage switching. All the while giving SEL R&D full access to the meter for their own real-world analytics.

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SEL came forth with an offer to hire, which I eagerly accepted. I started in the meter systems R&D group as an Application Engineer to help customers with troubleshooting the meter and provide invaluable input into the design of new features with respect for both the SEL-734 and SEL-735 meters. I went on to become an SEL University instructor specifically for the revenue and power quality meters. Meanwhile, at SEL I set up an internal group of SEL application engineers to train specifically in craft of metering and power quality monitoring spanning over six continents and countries. My voice is heard and known around the world in the craft of revenue metering.

 

Seeing, first-hand, over the years the mystery and technology behind all types of machinery I was exposed to, has served me well. All while, making new acquaintances along the way. It is truly a remarkable journey with new horizons awaiting to happen with me now at Power Integrity Sales Agency.