{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/electrical-and-electronics-repairers-powerhouse-substation-and-relay/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Electrical and Electronics Repairers, Powerhouse, Substation, and Relay",
    "soc_code": "49-2095",
    "category": "Trades",
    "us_employment": 20720,
    "median_annual_wage": 103020
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 68,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": false,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 16,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 10,
    "trust_premium": 8,
    "judgment_accountability": 15
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Injecting test current into a differential relay with an Omicron set, torque-checking breaker linkages, and pulling CT secondaries to prove polarity are physical verification steps that cannot be simulated away — the automatable slice is the setting math and the test sheet, not the wrench and the leads, which is why this sits at 16 rather than in the mixed band.",
    "embodiment": "You work inside energized 138kV yards, on top of transformers, in cramped relay houses and generating-station cable vaults, in ice, heat, and at 2am callout — a 19 reflects that the environment is not just physical but genuinely uncontrolled, with arc-flash boundaries and switching orders governing where your body can be.",
    "liability_shield": "There is no state licence for relay techs the way there is for a PE or a journeyman electrician in some jurisdictions; you hold NERC-relevant qualification records, employer switching authorization, and often NETA/NICET certification, so the utility and the stamping engineer carry the formal liability while your name still lands on the test report — that combination is a 10, not a 15.",
    "trust_premium": "Your standing matters to the system operator who accepts your clearance and to the protection engineer who trusts your as-found data, but the work product is a signed test record filed against an asset number, not a client relationship anyone shops around for — an 8 covers internal credibility without external stickiness.",
    "judgment_accountability": "Deciding a misoperation was a CT wiring error versus a genuine fault, whether to leave a bus on a single protection scheme overnight, or to re-energize after an intermittent trip are calls made with incomplete oscillography and blackout consequences, but they sit inside switching orders, NERC PRC standards, and an on-call engineer you can escalate to — hence 15 rather than 18."
  },
  "rationale": "The job is climbing into energized substations, bucket trucks, and generating stations to test protective relays, calibrate breakers, trace faults in switchgear, and commission equipment under live-grid constraints — none of which robotics can do at cost today. AI will absorb the paperwork tier: relay setting calculations, test-report generation, SCADA alarm triage, and trend analysis of transformer and battery data. What it cannot absorb is diagnosing an intermittent trip on a 138kV line at 2am and deciding whether to re-energize, a call with blackout and arc-flash consequences attached to a named human.",
  "outlook": "Grid buildout, renewable interconnection, and a retiring workforce keep demand firm through the 2030s; AI takes the reports and setting math while the field diagnosis, commissioning, and switching authority stay human.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "NERC expanding PRC-005 / PRC-027 protection-system compliance to require a named, qualified technician (or licensed PE) to attest to relay settings-verification records, with personal attestation retained in the audit trail rather than utility-level sign-off — the direction FERC/NERC audit findings on protection misoperations already push toward",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 5
      },
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "State PUC or OSHA-adopted NFPA 70E rule requiring a documented, individually-signed energized-work permit and arc-flash risk assessment by a qualified person for every live substation task, closing the current practice of blanket utility permits; some investor-owned utilities' own safety manuals already do this internally",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Post-event enforcement practice (as in FERC/NERC misoperation penalties and the after-action reviews following Texas 2021 and Moss Landing-type events) formally attributing re-energization decisions to the named on-site technician of record rather than to a control-center dispatcher, which raises the ambiguity-ownership of the role",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: once AI absorbs relay-setting calculation, test-report generation and SCADA alarm triage, the residual job is almost entirely commissioning novel equipment (inverter-based resources, HVDC converter stations, grid-scale storage) where settings interact unpredictably and no training corpus exists — this occupation genuinely has a paperwork tier and a live-diagnosis tier",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Utility mutual-aid and insurance requirements specifying human-verified commissioning for interconnection of new generation — narrow, since the buyer is a utility procurement department, not a retail customer who can express a preference for humans",
        "plausibility": "unlikely",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Embodiment at 19 and task_resistance at 16 are near ceiling; realistic headroom is 8-11 points, almost all in liability_shield, which is currently low only because accountability sits with the utility entity rather than the individual. The trust_premium dimension has essentially no route above ~10: the customer is a monopoly utility, not a discretionary buyer, so no willingness-to-pay-for-human mechanism exists. Note the countervailing risk: fleet-wide substation automation and remote-testing retrofits reduce headcount without touching any of these scores."
  },
  "adjudication": null,
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 24430,
        "wage": 78410
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 22980,
        "wage": 80200
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 22650,
        "wage": 82780
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 23070,
        "wage": 85340
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 22490,
        "wage": 93420
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 25440,
        "wage": 93720
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 24790,
        "wage": 96600
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 23040,
        "wage": 100940
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 20720,
        "wage": 103020
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -15.2,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}