Teaching and Research Initiatives in Power Engineering Technology

Abstract

The existing centralized, producer controlled generation, and uni-directional transmission and distribution network has been gradually shifting to distributed generation with significant integration of renewable energy and bi-directional power flow, leading to the so called "smart grid". The power grid evolvement is boosting related industries and provides a great opportunity for United States to secure its leadership for future economic growth. However, the education of engineers, technicians, and educators themselves has not kept pace with the rising demand for both grid modernization and workforce replacement. To address both technical and educational challenges, an NSF proposal was successfully proposed to develop a smart grid platform for multidisciplinary teaching and research activities. Obviously the revival of power engineering education cannot be the simple duplication of the previous curriculum. Traditional core courses in power engineering technology, such as power system, power electronics, electric machines, etc, need to be revamped to deliver relevant information in light of current industrial practices. Complementary knowledge and skills including control theory, embedded system, communications, digital signal processing, etc, are needed to strengthen student knowledge and skills in communication and information technologies. The project investigator team is composed of three faculties in two departments, and this presentation focuses on the teaching and research initiatives in Engineering Technology (ET). Background