A Survey of the State of the Power Engineering Profession in the Pacific Northwest and what Working Professionals are Defining as Priorities for Preparing Students to Fill Present and Near-Future Vacancies

What is the state of the power engineering profession today and what advice can working professionals give to academia on what is important for an introductory course? These two fundamental questions were asked of 73 power professionals representing 42 electric power entities throughout the United States Pacific Northwest via an online survey during the summer of 2015. Covered were the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska, as well as Western Montana and Northern California. For years there have been reports on the growing need for young engineers to step into large numbers of expected job vacancies due to retirement. Paralleling that concern has been that of the availability of quality power programs. The general perception is that few universities offer strong power curricula despite efforts in this area, although some good progress has been made. Indicative of these challenges has been the expansion of special scholarships for students willing to target power engineering as their field of choice (like that offered through the IEEE Power Engineering Society), and the hiring of graduates with little formal power education but who are perceived as capable of being trained. The author of this paper, who is an electrical engineering professor, has seen a significant number of his graduates enter the power industry to essentially ‘learn on the job.’ Subsequently there is a motive to learn firsthand the state of the profession in the Pacific Northwest in terms of demographics and also to get valuable current feedback from those in the field about topics they recommend as most important to cover in an introductory course. The author is in the process of developing such a course to complete a triad of power related courses offered as technical electives: Power Systems, Power Electronics, and Power Engineering. The survey reveals interesting results. For example 86% of the respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they had concerns about being able to fill coming job vacancies. Fifteen percent of those sampled reported being within five or fewer years of retirement, with 27% within 10 or fewer years. On the course content question, respondents were asked to prioritize subtopics in order of importance. Power transmission was selected as first or second priority 82% of the time and power distribution was selected first or second 74% of the time. Power generation dominated the ‘other’ category as it was not explicitly offered in the survey, and in hindsight should have been. Answers to open-ended questions provide a wealth of valuable advice for academicians to heed when introducing students to power, ranging from the actual process of substation design to the admonition to ‘make it fun!’ Introduction Background: The motivation for this survey was two-fold: (1) to gain insights into the state of the power engineering profession in the United States Pacific Northwest, and (2) to solicit feedback from working professionals in this region on what they believe are the most important elements to include as part of an introductory undergraduate power engineering course. There have been various reports on the concern for replacing soon-to-be retiring engineers. Anecdotal and professional papers have echoed the idea that there may not be enough adequately trained new engineering graduates to replace those leaving the profession. This concern has been flagged for quite some time. As early as 1975 this concern was voiced.1 This was also true in the 1980s and proposals for mitigation offered.2 In the 1990s this continued. For example, The IEEE Power Engineering Society presented a current assessment and proposals for how to revive the field for the 21st century.3 The military has recently also expressed this in terms of their future needs, as exemplified by the Navy’s move to electric ships, yet the inadequacies in their own academies power curriculum.4 One observation has been the availability of qualified faculty, with retirements not always being replaced or the level of expertise not perceived as being as strong. In a 2007 PES experts panel discussion, it was noted that • in the sequent 10 years power engineer needs would increase • the number of power students was on the rise • there was an aging workforce in industry and academia, and industry research funding for university power programs had fallen significantly over the previous decade and increased government funding was matching this decrease • focus on the capacity of power engineering programs to educate students for future needs was needed • there was a need to attract students to the power career option and the vital role played by faculty5 Out of this same concern, the power industry itself has taken steps to support and promote the development of young power engineers by recruiting interns and providing scholarships. One example of this is the IEEE Power Engineering Society Scholarship Plus Initiative which provide funds, help with internships, and mentorships.6 As these concerns have persisted they have spawned various studies of power engineering education and curricular reform. Among these the University of Minnesota has worked on developed an NSF funded comprehensive power curriculum where they put emphasis on the need for close cooperation with industrial professionals.7, 8 The Colorado School of Mines has had a similar focus.9 At Pennsylvania State University the affective aspects of power engineering education were addressed.10 They put emphasis on the importance of understanding students and faculty perceptions of engineering education. It also mentions the importance of curriculum organization and impact of curriculum organization on instructors. Need for student reflection, exposure, and discussion. It also supported the theme of industry cooperation to help professors. In nearby Canada, McGill University, University of Sherbrooke, Hydro-Quebec, ALSTOM have partnered together to create a joint Institute of Electrical Power Engineering based on the perceived need for more power engineer who are optimally trained.11 Finally in recent years there are those who have addressed ways to optimize the introductory power engineering classes at the university. This can apply not only to those programs that have a fairly robust offering in power, but also to those who have a more limited scope in their curriculum yet want to be as judicious as possible in what is included am excluded from such a course.12, 13 Context of the Survey: By gathering demographic information from a sampling of working professionals in the region I hoped to learn to what extent the perceptions of the power engineering workforce aligned with the cumulative responses to this survey. The second major focus of this survey was to garner input on what these working professionals consider to be the most important topics to cover for an introductory course. The idea here is that power providers hire electrical engineering graduates with fairly minimal explicit course work in power presumably because there are not enough for the need. I did an online review of the power engineering program offerings in my state of [omitted for double blind review] and found that only three institutions, one private and two public, have what could be called robust programs. Others have a limited suite of courses. Even though my institution of Seattle Pacific University does not have an explicit power engineering track, a number of graduates have moved successfully into the field. A lot of the training for specific jobs takes place on the job. If a graduate has a solid background in the fundamentals, is motived and is teachable, they can, and do, move into power jobs. We have a course in power electronics and one in power systems (commercial buildings and marine electric applications), but not one in power engineering. They depend on these courses and the rudimentary content on three phase that they cover in their circuit analysis courses. Yet despite the apparent success of our graduates it is clear that the better prepared they are the better for everyone. I reviewed the university level power programs in my state of Washington and found that only three have what would be considered robust undergraduate programs. By adding our own introductory power engineering course to the two other power related courses, we feel that we can better prepare our students to help fill the need. By getting the best possible input from working professionals in our region we hope to make the best use of the time we invest. Ideally the sample population for such a survey should be as random as possible to lend credence to the results. Within the scope of this work it was not possible to assure how well this was accomplished because of the challenging nature of contacting participants, getting assent, and actually having them complete the survey in a timely manner. For example, Figure 8 below shows that a bit more than 20% of all respondents held post graduate degrees, surely a higher percentage than for a truly random sampling of working professionals. This also does not address the career-extending effects that significant amounts of part time consulting has had on understanding the issue. However, given the demographic results of the respondents reported below, I believe the sample warrants credibility. Through diligence I was able to attain an 87% response rate in the allotted time (73/84), which was higher than expected and significantly higher than most surveys in general. My primary goal was to obtain enough responses to make the results arguably meaningful. The demographic data gathered in this survey were the following: (1) age, (2) gender, (3) job description from the categories of Engineer, Senior/Lead Engineer, Engineering Manager, Senior Management, (4) years with present employer, (5) years in present job, (6) years in power industry, (7) estimated number of power engineers with employer, (8) number of employer c