IEEE Power Engineering Review - IEEE Xplore

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Priilnote power engineering technology cducntion and ... neering ;in11 Technology (ABET) .... students are usually masters or Ph.D. candidates who have.
G.T. Hcyclt, S.8.Vcnkata, C . h Gross, P.W. Saucr

Promoting the Power Engineering Profession Through the IEEE Power Engineering Society T

hroughout the cvolulion of electrical engineering, the spcciiilties lhal attracl sttitleiits have changed rapidly and ofLen. Sitice the iiitroduclion o r solid-slale clcclronics, engineering education has seen student interest shift further and firther from the electric power area. Huwever, llic need for clectrical engineers with a background in power liiis never driipped hclow Lhc crilical level where all prograins were sliuL down. When otililics experienced slow years, lhc inanufaacluring and consul~ingindustries liave used the opportunily to iiic'rcase their capabilities. I t appmrs that electric piiwer engineers w i l l he needed for the foreseeable fulurc. On Lhc supply side, ~ l i ciirrenL c challenge i s Lhc iionslop ill~ c r c si n~compuler engineering and the related fields o f coinIiiuniciition and signal processing. A t iiiany uiiiversilics, the number (if freshinen in combined Elcctrical/Conipiitcr Engincering Departments liiivc seen the ctiniptiler engiiiccrs nuinhcr over hall'ofthc enrollincnt. This nieaiis that in ii iiew class or400 freshmen, less thiin 200 will select eleclrical ciiginecring. Or these 200, approximately 10 l o 20 percent w i l l elect to specialize in electric [xiwer. This i s getting dangeriiusly near Lhc c r i t i c a l m i n i m u m L o sustain c w r s e enrollnienls i n power engineering electives. The IEEE Power Engineering Society (PES) has f;iced h i s challenge bcfore and lias been onc o f the rcw IEEE societies to create a committee to address Lhc problems (if sfimulating tlie profession at the cducatioiiel level. This arlicle provides a summary c i f the activities cif t l i i s cmniiiittee ancl seeks involvement Emin intereslcd sociely nieinbcrs.

IEEE Power Engineering Society Power Enginecring Education Committee PES has supported cffcirts in cducation for many years. Since 1961, thcsc efforts have been largcly organized by tlie Powcr Engineering EducaLioii Committee (PEEC), Ihc only c~iminittee of the PES tliiil Ibcuses on power engineering cduc:ition. The scope 01' PEEC, :is staitcd i n i t s operations manual, i s to: * Work for constant improvemenl o f relationships nniong all scgineiils (if the power industry and dl elements ol'lhc ciigineering etlucalion coiinininily * Priilnote power engineering technology cducntion and professional dcvelopmcnt iii schools and iiitlusll-y e Work with other appropriale PES Coinmittees to develop continuing cduc:ition programs iii the power field and contrihulions Lo the IEEE Press Formulatc rccommcnded PES policy d a t i v e to all tiiiillers involving engineering and technology curricula accreditation e Scrve as tlic pritmiry source (if PES nominees t'or service in tlie v:i~-iousactivities OS the Accreditation Board cor Engineering ;in11 Technology (ABET)

* Advocate research and support researchers at universities and encourage the dissemination and application of university rcseiirch in power engineering 8 Coopcrate with educational committees of other societies. PEEC reports to thc PES Vice President for Educationniidustry Relations Activities. The committee is subdividcd into eight subcommittees: 0 Administrative Suhcommittee (AtlCom) * Life Long Learning Subcoininittee e Univcrsity Education Activitics Subcommittec e Student Meeting Aclivitics Subcommittee Awards and Recognition Suhcoinmittee * Strategic Planning Subcommittec e Power Engineering Career Promotion Subcoininittee e Rescasch Suhcoinmittee. These subcommittees organize activities somcwhat indepcndently, and several of thcm have working groups. Each subcommittee has a chair and vice-chair. The subcommittees meet formally twicc a year at the PES Summer Meeting (SM) and Winter Meeting (WM). Recently the AdCoin decided to meet quarterly at the WM, American Power Confcrence, SM, and Noah American Power Symposium [NAPS) to pruvide better scmice to its members.

Membership in PEEC Anyone may attend PEEC meetings or the meetings of its subcommittees. Any IEEE PES member may become a member of PEEC subcommittees, and this is an excellent way to initiate membership in PEEC itself. Snbcommittce membership varies from 5 to 40 pcople. One does not have Lo he a member of PEEC to serve on a PEEC snhcommittee. Any PES member may join PEEC by showing intercst in subcommittee membership and intercst in the full committee's activities. Once attaining membership in PEEC, it is retailicd by attendance at PEEC mcetings which are usually held at the WM and SM. If a member fails to attend three successive meetings of thc PEEC main committec, that mcmber is generally dropped from thc rolls. Thus, every PEEC mcmber innst attend at least one meeting every 2 years. This requirement has been loosely enforced.

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Strategic Activity

The composition of PEEC has varied widely over the years: prior to 1970, the committee was largely made up of industry representatives, In f k t , as industry members left the committee, recruitment of new industry representatives rcplenishetl their predecessors. In more recent ycars, there has been a considerable swing toward academia, and, at present, 71 nf the 81 committcc inembers are educators. The nonuniversity representatives are industry aiid governmcnl employees iis well as retirees. The low nuinbcr of nonuniversity members are discussed later in this article. At present, the niimher of women on the committee is low, and an objective oC the committee is to increase representation from this sectos oStlie power cnginccring education community.

Main PEEC Efforts PEEC snbcommittce activities range very widely in ohjectives from teaching to networking. The target groups also vary widely, from precollege to nnivcrsity faculty. Tahlc I shows selected PEEC activities organized by target group aiid strategic activity. In Table I , note that some unscientific generalization and categorization is made: e.g., anyone may enroll in tutorials, undergraduates may use PEEC videotapes, etc. Note that the majority of the activities listed iii Table I did not exist .just 5 years ago. Most are a result ofthe recognition that a great dcal of effort is needed to attract stndents to power engineering. In the 1960s, PEEC was most concerned with liaison activities with coininittees outside PEEC, curricnlnm plans, and quality of power programs. An important part of PEEC meetings dealt mainly with liaison activities with other PES committees, which, in fact, were not usually targeted at university educators. In the advent of thc tremendous cxpension of solid state and computer engineering, fewer and fewer students elect power as a caseer path. Consequently, many present PEEC activitics are directed at countering this trend by informing stndents ahoul careers in power, retaining the students we havc, networking them, and providing technical resources to thcm. In addition, PES-wide tutorial activities are organized in a uniform way in PEEC. The miin PEEC activities are summarized as follows: * Vidcotapes are professionally I .prepased . and distributed tu uresent power as an attractive career path. Dr. S.S. Vcnkata of Iowa State University and Dr. N. Schull of Michigan Tech University have bccn mainly responsible for this activity. 0 Faculty research capabilities are being gathcred in a Web site available to all. Areas orinterest index the capabilities. The sitc is npcrated by Dr. M. Crow and Dr. Pahwa, and it is located at http://www .cce.umr.edd-powc dUScapab. html and www.ece. iimr.edii/-power/PEEC.] 0 Establishment and maintenance of ii U.S. power graduate student listserver. Pi-csently, the listservcr has 131 student memhers. The listscrver was partially sponsored by the NSF and mainly created by Dr. Noel Schulz at [email protected]; the

0

* *

listserver is further descrihed at http:// www.cc.intii .cdu/us-pcn. The Power Globc is maintaincd as ;in Intcrnct listserver on power engineering topics. About two messages arc broadcast daily from a host site at North Dakola Slate University to ovcr 2,000 subscrihers of the Power Globe. Topics arc usually technical (e.g., asking for data or cxpcricncc with specific piiwer engineering ctpipment and methods) or informative (e.g., niccling announccmcnls, new texthixiks). At present, about half of tlie Power Globe subscrihcir; are iiutside the United States. A subcorninillcc o l Ibur opcratcs the Power Globe: at present, Dr. B. Mork chairs the committee. The Power Globe Wch site is Imp:// list serv.nodak.cdu/archivcs/power-gl~~he,html, A brief histoiy of the Power Globe will he found in the July 1995 issue OS /EKE Coinputer Apphition,s in Power magazi tic. PES offers about four power engineering Litlorials at each Summer and Winter Meeting. l‘liese tutorials arc organized and run by PEEC. The tut~riiilsgenerate funds for PES, and they mainly scrvc industry needs in specific technical areas. The main organizers of these tiitorials have hecn Dr. M. Sachdev and Dr. M. El-l-law;iry. A specialized symposium on cfrcctivc tcaching is being ollcrcd friim time tii time hefore the Summer Meeting. This iictivity serves a networking need among tcaichcrs, iind it i i l s i i servcs tii update lcaichcrson tlie latest educational techniques. Summer and Winter Meeting studcnl programs arc dcsigned to sponsor attendance Lo thcsc meetings, to involve students in thcsc meetings, Lo sponsor a student prize paper contest, to organi7,etours and “rap sessions,” and to arrange lunches iind dinners with appropriiite speakers and opportiinitics for thc students to inect with industrial sponsors. l h i s PEEC activity has, pcrhaps, hecii the greatest investment of man-hours to the strategic goals of the committee. ’l‘he budgets for recent SM/WM student programs are shown in Table 2. The sources offtinding are PES (30-35 percent), NSF (-20 percent), and tlic participaling universities and industrial spnnsiirs (almost 50 percent). Student participation in the prograni is shown i n Table 3. The nrginizcrs Snr thcsc prngrams have been Dr. M. Daneshdoost of Southern Illinois University, Dr. R.R. Adlcr of the Philadclphia Electric Company, and Dr. M. Crow ollhc University of Missiiol-iat Rollii. The main limitation of this program is the available

Table 2. Budget for recent PES Inectisg PEBC stiidctit pmgrains

Year

Winter Meetiug

KJnderg:rsduate

Graduate

Summer Mertiug

._

Undergrnduate

Graduate

Total

funding. In 1999, 61 studcnts had to be declined participation due to unavailability of funds. The largest student program ovci- the years was for the l99X Winter Meeting in Columbus, Ohiii. Fnr the I999 Winter Meeting, sludcnls kom over 30 universities participated in the prngram (including ten non-1J.S. universities). * Reviewing about 30 technical pipers per year Sor publicalinii iii IEEB Trnn,sriclioiis on Power. Sysrein.8. Thcsc tccliniciil papers are organized into special sessions tit the SM and WM, cncouraging iiiteriictioii belwccn liiculty, sludents, and intcrcsLcd industry members. * The PES “Educationiil Manpower Survcy” is a hiannual survey ofU.S. and C;inadi;in ciilleges and universities to identify the size of programs, cducatiiinal clcments offered, a n d resources of those programs. This survcy Iiiis been made for ovcr 30 years, and the most recently published summary appears i n IEEE Trwwrcfions on P~i~vevS.v.sleins, August 1994, pages I 182-1 193. The survey is uiiiquc within IEEE, providing valuable inlbnnarion lor lxxlty, students, and industiy members (in tlic health and activities of universities oflcring power engineering programs. InSnrmiition on the survey is available 11-iiniDr. A. Cliiindrasekaran of Tenncsscc Tech Recognition of individuals, subcommittees, working groups, and authors though awards and prize papers. e Encoufiigcmcnt nf distaiice learning techniques in powcr cngineering. Wgurc 1 shows ii pictorial of the main efforts in this area. I1 is believed that this effort on Ihe part oS PEEC has eocourziged several university coalitioiis to experiment and adopl inniivative educational techniques that niiiximiz.c tlie ulilization of speciiilized talents i n selected US.universities. In Figure I references A, B, and C arc pictori;lls iifciillabnraliiig universities. Netwiirlking iind cnllahoratioii are now an important part of power programs at many universities. * The North American Power Symposium is a meeting held annuiilly at ii university i n Norlh Amcrica, and it has lhc following stated porposc: “The purposc of the Nnrlh American Power Symposium is to stimulate advanced scholarly work and more rcsciirch aclivity i n the field [if electric power engineering. This symposium is to be a Sorum whcrc ;alvanccd students, their academic advisors, and practicing engineers can present the results of their work, discuss Lhc activilics oftheircolleagiies, and publish their technical accomplishnients with a minimum time deIO

Development 01 course materials at different sites and exchange them with

partners via TV.

Joint development of modular course aides and exchange them via the internet

EDUCATIONAL MATERIALS MODULE MODULE MODULE MODULE MODULE

Colieclion of repository 01 software tools

OFSOFTWARE

Fiporo 1. Iiieovalive educalinnal techniques in clcclrie power e i i g i m e r i r i ~

lay.” NAPS was initially conceived as the Midwest Power Symposium (MPS) in 1969. It became a true national conference in 1986. For many powercngineering educators, NAPS has become a centerpiecc of the year to meet with other profcssors, to find out ahout forthcoming programs and opportunities, and to exchange ideas on rcscarch priorities. Mainly, the presenters at NAPS are students: these students are usually masters or Ph.D. candidates who have their first opportunity to present thcir work at ii wcll attended meeting. They get valuable feedback on the value of their work and they often receive input on the dircctioti of their work. The theme of these meetings has varied from technical topics to educational activities. In recent years, there have been 13 to 20 sessions with 65 to 90 papers presented, resulting in a 500 to 600 page Proceedings diicument. In all of the recent NAPS meetings, there havc heen discussions of stemming the dccline in enrollment of students in power engineering courses.

Research and Education in Power Engineering Research is generally considered as pert of the educational programs of institutions of higher cducation. In cngineering, larger universities have educatiotial and rescarch programs 01‘ similar size. Some smaller engineering institutions do iiot engage in research at acommeiisiirate level, but most engineering institutions, no matter what the size, encourage its professors to remain current by research, participation in engineering meetings, and rending (and preparing) IEEE and other learncd joumals. In power engineering at educational institutions, research is often a main rocus of the programs. Research allows participants, both faculty and students, to engage in and shapc tlie future of the ficld. Masters and doctoral level education in power includes research exposure. From a inorc pragmatic view, research serves arolc of bringing support funds to the university to allow hiring accomplished faculty. At many institutions, rcsearch serves as a yardstick for part of the faculty promotion process. An estimate of rescarch expenditures at U.S. and Cma20

dian institutions is given in “The impact of Funding Agency Programmatic Elements on Power Engineering Research at Universities,” by V. Vitta1 and G. T, Heydt, Procecdings of the 1998 North American Power Symposium, pages 1.5. PEEC has a subcoininittee devoted to university rescarch issues. The statcd scope of the subcommittee is to: “Advocate research and researchers. Promote programs for power enginccring research at government and private entities. Proimote forums for the dissemination or university research.” The Research Subcommittee is the newest subcommittee o l PEEC, and it presently lias about 35 mcmhers. It mainly serves a networking role to inform menibcrs of the: a Latest research opportunities and venues to report research results Role of thc National Scicnce Foundation in supporting power progranis Latest developments at the Electric Power Rescarch Institute, the U.S. Depiirtmcnt ol Energy. ;md other agencies that support research in power engineering * coordination of NAPS is donc in this subcornmiltee. As evidence of tlie conneclion of the Research Subcommittee with tlie NSF, the October I997 and April I999 NSF workshops organized by Dr. S. l