Speakers

Darren De Ronde, P.E. is a Principal Protection Engineer who has more than 20 years of hands-on electric utility experience bringing together the right combination of detailed drawings, relay setting/programming, digital communications, and documentation to deliver successful and repeatable projects. He has broad experience in engineering protection and control systems for mission critical environments such as data centers and utility transmission systems. Darren is a firm believer that consistency is key and great designs meet both business goals AND operational needs. Before joining Tesco, Darren worked as a Data Center Protection Engineer for Google, where he designed modern protection systems based on IEC 61850 to be capable of scaling globally in a repeatable and rapidly deployable fashion. This work included designing cost-effective digital substation architectures across multiple different vendor products that could be deployed across different continents. With operational needs in mind, Darren developed training specifically for site personnel and instructed the class so that folks responsible for the equipment were prepared with the necessary skills to operate and maintain the digital design. Darren’s previous work experience includes working at Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories in their Engineering Services division working on configuring relays, developing construction drawing packages, and field commissioning. Additionally, Darren worked for the utility Xcel Energy as a system protection engineer and as a consultant at Ulteig Engineers as a substation design engineer. Darren received his Bachelors of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering degree from Calvin University in Grand Rapids, MI. He is a registered Professional Engineer in the states of California and Minnesota.