Our engineering workforce is critical to advancing our mission to build the cleanest, safest, and most reliable energy infrastructure company in America. We recently highlighted our Engineering Excellence Luncheon, and are now spotlighting individuals who received awards at the event as part of our "Engineering Excellence" series. Our third feature is on Stephanie Lomeli, who was recognized with the 2022 'Up and Comer' Award.
Stephanie Lomeli, engineer II on the Distributed Energy Resources (DER) team, is already making a big impact early on in her career and was recently recognized with the 2022 “Up and Comer” award.
Growing up here in San Diego, Stephanie was always interested in math, so pursuing engineering when she got to Arizona State University was a natural fit. After college, she began her career at here at SDG&E in the engineering rotational program. While being a woman in a male-dominated field isn’t always easy, Stephanie is glad that she can be an example for other women who may be interested in engineering.
“I wanted to prove that a Latina woman like myself can excel in a field where we don’t have much representation and make my family proud,” said Stephanie. “I want to encourage more women that they can excel in a tech or engineering field too!”
Keeping the Power on for Our Residents
As a DER engineer, Stephanie says none of her days ever look the same. She’s involved in planning and designing for future microgrids, performing commissioning tests for new battery sites before bringing them online, as well as helping the team operate and troubleshoot our existing energy storage and microgrid sites.
Stephanie was the lead engineer for the Portable Generator Deployment Program, which helps to ensure life support customers, medical baseline customers, critical businesses, and communities as a whole, are able to keep their power on during outages. Notably, Stephanie and her team helped set up generators for a mobile home community that had its power cut out after a plane crash in El Cajon last year. The team had to set up the generators very quickly, marking the fastest turnaround in the program’s history.
Currently, she serves as the project technical lead for an Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) pre-commercial demonstration project for mobile battery energy storage systems. EPIC is a CPUC-funded program that aims to assist the development of non-commercialized new and emerging clean energy technologies in California. “We’ve tested multiple use cases of the mobile battery at various sites and are looking to test further to see all of the benefits that a mobile battery can bring to the utility and to our customers,” said Stephanie.
Spreading the Knowledge
Stephanie says the best part of her job is the opportunity to teach and mentor newer engineers.
“I’m grateful to have started my career at SDG&E in our rotational program and now I can pay it forward by helping out the next generation of engineers,” said Stephanie. “We are constantly working on new technologies to help our communities and it’s my goal to pass on that knowledge whenever I can.”
Stephanie is committed to helping others here at work, and also in her spare time. Last school year, she started volunteering with Reality Changers, tutoring high schoolers. She plans to continue her volunteer work this upcoming school year.
When she’s not at work or volunteering, Stephanie likes to spend time in nature and hike with her dog, Pancake.
Thank you, Stephanie, for all that you continue to do for our company and the community!