Electric power engineering laboratory resources of the United States of America and Canada

The authors present the result of a study of the state of electric power engineering laboratory resources of 123 educational institutions in the United States and Canada. The study deals with five principal areas: basic demographic information; equipment available to the student researcher; educational and experimental emphasis in the power area; areas of research done in the power laboratory; and opinions, planning, and interests of students and faculty members. It is found that 78% of the respondents regard a power laboratory as important for their students´ education, and yet 83% still place an emphasis on component-oriented experiments which do not give the students adequate preparation for the system aspect often encountered on the job. Furthermore, 84% agree that the education of power engineers relies too heavily upon computer simulation studies, and should be complemented with work on physically based laboratory systems.<>