2019 IEEE General Meeting 8/7 Panel Presentation: New Generation Laboratories to Enable Smart Grid Education

Power Engineering Education as we know it is rapidly changing. The emphasis is now strongly focused on Renewable Energy and their grid connections, micro-grid, layered communication enabled power infrastructure and protection systems. Around the World, power engineering Professors are adapting to this change and creating new generation of power systems research facilities. There was a gap in power system education for a sustained period due the development in some emerging technology including computer, telecommunication and internet finding their way into power engineering education and research. IoT applications are now just a concept but a reality. Future jobs for power engineering graduates and their career largely depends on learning the new game prior to joining the workforce. Universities are training ground for them and must change the way they are currently teaching power engineering. To mitigate, many universities and research centers invested in power and energy laboratories to boost the research and development in renewable sectors and smart grid area. These laboratories have setups for wind turbines (fixed and variable speeds) testbed, photovoltaic system, fuel-cell, energy storage systems, marine current/tidal plants, etc., blending power and control hardware-in-the-loop facilities. There also exist some hardware/software platforms from different vendors which helps in understanding power system operations starting from generation, transmission, and distribution. Students now can easily visualize the actual systems using these facilities which eventually wide-spreading power system and renewable energy educations. This panel is dedicated to discussing recent successes and future needs/trends of laboratory facilities in advancing power system and renewable energy education across the World.