TEAM DIRECTORY BY BUSINESS UNIT

Substations Technology & Testing


Mr. Bruce Sunga is the Director of the Substations Technology and Testing sector at Powertech Labs. He brings more than 28 years of commercial, industrial and electric utility experience in areas of stations and system planning, analytical studies, asset management, project management, design, automation, R&D, construction, testing, commissioning and acceptance, failure investigation and maintenance. The Substations Technology and Testing sector is comprised of two world-renowned labs (High Current and Applied Chemistry – fuels and lubes, polymers, environment, insulating oils and gases), a prestigious R&D and investigations group, a substations studies group, and field testing services and asset management group.

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phone: 604.590.7416
cellular: 604.812.7504


With over 20 years of experience in the energy sector, Dr. Jorge Hollman is a Principal Engineer and the Senior Manager for the High Current Technologies Lab and the Substations Studies and Equipment Applications department at Powertech Labs. He is a recognized power systems expert and has experience in modelling, transients, disturbance and equipment failure analysis, equipment specification and performance in planning and operations.

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phone: 604.598.5113   
cellular: 604.831.5148


Dr. Stuart Chambers is the manager of R&D, Investigation & Consulting, which includes being the lead for the polymer and materials investigation facility in Powertech’s Substations Technology & Testing group. His areas of research, development and testing include transformer diagnostics, insulating paper degradation, aging properties of insulating oils, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) decontamination and investigations into polymeric materials. He has completed substantial research into insulating materials, fluids and gases for the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the Canadian Electrical Association (CEATI), BC Hydro and other research organizations. Notable lead projects from his department include the assessment of transformer paper through the analysis of specific marker by-products, determination of fault markers in alternative insulating fluids, novel methods of fault-detection in load tap changers, and life extension of transformers by online oil purification resulting in the production of a commercially available device (OODU).

Dr. Chambers is a materials/analytical chemist with 15 years of experience and training. His areas of expertise and interest include materials preparation, alteration and characterization, and chromatography/purification. Dr. Chambers has authored numerous peer-reviewed papers and has given more than 30 conference presentations

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phone: 604.590.6614   
cellular: 778.707.9309


Mr. Stephen Varisco is the Manager of Applied Chemistry & Environment at Powertech Labs. With 20 years of analytical laboratory experience in the field of environmental testing, Stephen is responsible for all unit testing performed in the environmental, transformer oil and coolant/fuel/lubricant departments. He has extensive expertise with laboratory optimization, method validation, data interpretation and laboratory information systems (LIMS), and is currently the vice chair of the British Columbia Environmental Laboratory Technical Advisory Committee (BCELTAC).

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phone: 604.590.7462