Pterra Staff

Pterra is comprised of a committed and dedicated group of professionals.  Each of our principals have extensive experience in the power industry and have leading technical roles in their fields of specialization in electric power.  In addition. Pterra staffs projects with capable technical personnel of proven skills and commitment. 

Ric Austria

Executive Principal.  Pterra founder.  Over thirty years experience in electric power transmission planning, operations, analysis, design and engineering, and brings this knowledge to help clients worldwide in the power industry.

He is an expert in the specialized fields of system reliability, transmission planning, energy markets and system analysis. He has provided expert testimony in these areas in filings with the FERC , state and local public commissions. He has led and conducted transmission studies in all US interconnections and over 25 national networks worldwide including applications in transmission congestion, online security assessment, locational marginal pricing for energy markets and firm transmission rights. Mr. Austria has spoken at numerous conferences, authored articles and participated in working groups on the subject of electric power transmission. He has taught courses for control center operators, planners and utility managers on various technical subjects focused on electric power transmission.

Mr. Austria was formerly Vice President of Consulting at Power Technologies, Inc. (Schenectady, New York), Vice President of transmission studies at EPRI Solutions, Inc. and Senior Specialist at the National Power Corporation.

Focus areas: Transmission planning; voltage control and reactive power planning and design; power system analysis; power system stability; power system reliability; transmission reliability; operations planning; software development; planning and operations training; energy markets.

Dr. Moises Gutierrez

Principal Consultant. Founding member of Pterra, LLC and has more than 30 years of experience which includes interconnection studies, transmission access studies, power system expansion studies, dynamic modeling, dynamic analysis of power systems, feasibility studies, substation layout studies, switching and lighting surge analysis, transformer and induction machine model reduction, software model development, and teaching engineering and software courses. He has had consulting stints with Power Technologies, Inc. (PTI) (1997-2004), and Utility System Technologies (1993-1997). He was a researcher at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (1987-1993). Dr. Gutierrez was Engineering Director at the Nicaraguan Institute of Energy (1969-1987).

Focus areas: Interconnection studies, transmission access studies, power system expansion studies, dynamic modeling, dynamic analysis of power systems, feasibility studies, substation layout studies, switching and lighting surge analysis, transformer and induction machine model reduction, software model development.

Dr. Le Hui

Consultant.  Dr. Hui has been active in research in the field of electric power engineering to develop novel technologies for next-generation high-voltage cables, fluids for smart transformers, and high energy battery packs for portable devices during her academic training. She has solid background on power system modeling and analysis, and used different programming languages to develop power system models and implement load flow analysis as well as fault analysis.  Her current interest is on renewable energy integration. At Pterra, she is involved in model development and the studies of impact of renewable resources on the stability of the grid. She is proficient in commercial software such as DistriView and SynerGEE for distribution circuit studies.

Areas of focus: Power system modeling, load flow analysis, fault analysis, protection, power equipment, high voltage engineering.

Amin Mahdieh Najafabadi

Consultant.  Mr. Najafabadi is a Consultant with Pterra focusing on electric power system control, analysis and design. His experience includes studies of distribution circuit relaying and protection, transmission system stability, high levels of penetration of photovoltaic (PV) generation and high inrush current devices on distribution networks, and voltage flicker mitigation, among others. He has a solid background in power system modeling and analysis, and has used different programming languages and commercial software to develop power system models and to conduct analysis of real world reliability and technical issues.

At Pterra, Mr. Najafabadi is involved in model development and interconnection studies of renewable resources.

More of Our Team

Carolyn Steuhl

Ryan Villajuan

Hannah Infantado

Wit Lastiani

Rowena Fuller

Motunrayo Rabiu

For a full summary of our resources available for specific needs, please contact us at info@pterra.us.

 

 

Ramon Tapia

Managing Principal.  Pterra founder.  Over 30 years experience in transmission planning, operations and software development. He has led and conducted transmission studies nationwide and overseas to assist Transmission Owners and ISO’s to develop sound solutions for the planning and operation of their interconnected power systems. Mr. Tapia’s experience also includes participation on various task forces of both, the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), and the Northeast Power Coordinating Council (NPCC) addressing operational model development and interregional transfer capability analysis. Mr. Tapia has authored several articles on the subject of electric power engineering.

Focus areas: Power system analysis; operations planning; voltage control and reactive power planning; transfer limit analysis and application of optimization techniques to power system operation and planning, wind farm modeling.

Ketut Dartawan

Managing Principal. Founding member of Pterra, LLC. His background is in power system studies, electrical measurements and relay testing having participated in numerous analytical studies on electrical transmission systems in the US interconnections as well as several other countries. He has extensive experience with substation equipment and has worked with equipment vendors during the design, commissioning and startup of a 230 kV transmission line and associated substations. He has performed and directed power flow, short circuit, transient stability, protective relaying, motor starting, power factor correction, and voltage regulation studies for many industrial plants in the US and several other countries. Mr. Dartawan was formerly Senior Consultant at Power Technologies, Inc. (Schenectady, New York) and Senior Engineer at Freeport McMoRan, one of the biggest copper and gold mining companies in the world.

Focus areas: Short-circuit calculation and substation equipment duty application, bulk power system operation and planning which includes power flow, short-circuit, and transient stability analysis. Industrial power system application which covers coordination of protective relaying, harmonic, motor starting, voltage regulation, power factor correction, power flow, short circuit, transient stability, and electrical measurements.

Dr. Mahmoud Elfayoumy

Principal Consultant. Founding member of Pterra, LLC.  Dr. Elfayoumy has extensive experience in electrical power system planning. He participated in numerous analytical studies on electrical transmission systems nation wide to assist electric utilities and independent power producers in developing solutions for safe and reliable power system operation. Moreover, Dr. Elfayoumy provided training to power system engineers in the use of power system analysis packages and teaching short technical courses for several clients.  Dr. Elfayoumy is Member of IEEE and PES society, a member of TAU BETA PI professional engineers honor society chapter of Washington DC, and a member of Sigma Xi professional scientific research society.

Focus areas: Power system analysis, bulk power system reliability planning, transfer limit analysis, power system operation, power system stability, wind power integration in bulk power systems, software development, and artificial intelligence applications to power systems.

Mario Infantado

Senior Consultant.  Mario Infantado has over 20 years of experience in the electric power industry. In his career, he has been most recently involved in transmission planning studies. He brings into this arena of study his experience in the field as a lead engineer involved in substation projects as well as testing, commissioning, troubleshooting and preventative maintenance of power equipment, relays, instrumentation, controls and communication systems in power plants and substations, and as a generalist who has overseen technical aspects and logistical management of capital, physical, and human assets in large engineering projects.  Mr. Infantado brings to Pterra’s clients his wealth of background and experience to enable the efficient and effective conduct of detailed planning and operational studies of transmission and distribution systems, and to provide timely and responsive delivery of analytical results and reports.

Areas of Focus: Load flow analysis, dynamic simulation and analysis of power systems, software model development.
 

Anthony Austria

Consultant.  Anthony Austria has been with Pterra since 2007 as a student intern, junior engineer and now Consultant.  His areas of expertise include power flow, transfer analysis and transient modeling, and has applied his skills to studies involving the integration of new generation, primarily solar and wind, as well as the transmission studies of large interconnected networks.  His recent work involved power exchange capacities among South Asian countries of India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Nepal, as well as between the various Indian states.  He has also been active in studies of transient and temporary overvoltages and voltage flicker of solar inverters.  He is proficient in the power system applications of software such as PSCAD, PSLF and Matlab. 

Anthony Austria is a 2009 graduate of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York with a Bachelor's Degree in Biomedical Engineering.  


 

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