Electric Power Systems Education for Multidisciplinary Engineering Students

Abstract

New challenges associated with power and energy and a rapidly retiring workforce have created a great demand for power and energy engineers from across engineering disciplines. Within this context, the Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky, a multidisciplinary engineering institute offering certificates in power and energy at the University of Kentucky has been created. A motivating observation guiding this educational program is that exposure to multidisciplinary ideas within the power and energy field will better prepare engineers from all disciplines for the types of multidisciplinary problems that they will encounter in their careers. As part of this program, a senior-/graduate-level course in electric power system fundamentals was created. This course is a core course within the power and energy program and is an option for undergraduate students and a requirement for graduate students studying within the program, including those who are not electrical engineers. Therefore, this course is intended for engineering students studying electrical engineering as well as those studying in other engineering disciplines. The fundamental challenge associated with this course is how to achieve the correct balance between sufficient technical rigor for an upper-level electrical engineering student and appropriate level for students with little electrical engineering coursework, a challenge that is significantly different than those experienced in teaching lower-level engineering courses to students in different disciplines. The ways in which this challenge has shaped course outcomes, prerequisites, textbook selection, and course structure are presented. Course assessment data (including exam-based assessment of outcomes and student selfassessment) as well as anecdotal evidence of how well this challenge is being met are discussed and analyzed. In particular, the performance of electrical engineering students and students from other engineering disciplines is compared for the various course outcomes. Lessons learned from offering this course are presented. I.