A case study on blackout restoration as an educational tool

New exercises are needed to stimulate interest in power engineering, especi ally providing links to the other areas of electrical engineering such as c omputers or controls. While de-regulation has revitalized many technical ch allenges in power system engineering, power faculty members need updated re sources to interest students in power engineering as a career. This paper d escribes a case study developed at Michigan Technological University (MTU), This exercise provides an educational opportunity for electrical engineeri ng students at the sophomore/junior level to expand their knowledge about p ower systems in general, and more specifically power system blackout restor ation. Besides offering explanations of concepts, this case study uses the dynamic environment of html to help create links for more detailed and ofte n more visual representations for key concepts. The end goals for the stude nts are 1) to complete open-ended exercises to see how they can immediately apply their newly acquired knowledge and 2) an introduction to advanced po wer system subjects.