Monthly Meetings

Power Quality Education

Date: Thursday, October 23^rd, 2003 Time: 11:30 AM to 1:00 PM

Location: SRP Information Services Building (ISB), 1600 N. Priest Dr, Tempe, AZ

Speaker: Dr. Jerry Heydt, Arizona State University

Topic: "Power Quality Education"

This presentation is an overview of how power quality is portrayed as a topic in the power engineering program at ASU. The presentation begins with general remarks on both electrical engineering education and power engineering education. The results of a recent survey of power engineering educational programs are summarized. Data on enrollments are given - both at ASU and nationally. The power program at ASU is described. ASU is a member of the Power Systems Engineering Research Center, a national resource on power engineering. The PSerc program includes several valley industry sponsors - and the general concept of PSerc will be described.

Power quality is introduced at the senior or graduate level at ASU as a way to cover topics in distribution engineering, AC circuits, modeling, power utilization, and problem solving. Some of the course on power quality deals with basic signal processing concepts (e.g., frequency spectra), and some with hardware solutions of problems. Rectifiers are discussed in some detail. Solution technologies include filters, electronic solutions, phase multiplication, isolation of feeders for sensitive loads, and a range of three-phase connection methods. The role of standards is described, and power quality indices are studied in detail. Some examples are given to illustrate the kind of material presented to the students.

Speaker Bio:
Gerald Thomas Heydt is from New York. He spent his early life in Nevada, and he received the BEEE (1965) degree from the Cooper Union. His MSEE (1967) and PhD (1970) degrees are from Purdue University, West LaFayette, Indiana. Dr. Heydt has industrial experience with the Commonwealth Edison Company in Chicago, and E. G. & G. in Mercury and Las Vegas, Nevada. He also has worked with the United Nations Development Program in various positions around the world. He spent about 25 years with the faculty at Purdue University where he was a Professor of Electrical Engineering. In 1994, Dr. Heydt took a position as Center Director and Professor of Electrical Engineering at Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona. The power research center is a part of the NSF and industry supported national center known as the Power Systems Engineering Research Center, PSerc. His interests are in electric power quality, distribution engineering, and applications of computers in power system analysis. He is the author of two books, one on electric power quality, and the other on computer analysis of power systems. He is a registered professional engineer, Fellow of the IEEE, and a member of the National Academy of Engineering. Dr. Heydt was named a Regents' Professor at Arizona State University in 2002.