Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

National Science Foundation Workshop

on the Future Power Engineering Workforce

November 29-30, 2007

Holiday Inn Arlington

Arlington, VA

Co-sponsored by: IEEE Power Engineering Society, North American Electric

Reliability Corp., Power Systems Engineering Research Center

 

Agenda

Presentations

List of NSF Participants

List of All Participants

List of Summit Participants

Executive Summary

Draft Report of NSF Workshop (New!)

Iowa State University Homepage

1. Power Engineering Workforce as a National Challenge

Exiting engineering expertise and talent shortages in the power industry could soon start constraining industry’s ability to innovate and efficiently meet technical challenges in the years to come. Estimates put the loss in technical talent through retirements at around 50 percent in the next 5 to 10 years. To provide the industry with a sufficient supply of well-trained engineers, there is a critical need to sustain electric power engineering programs at U.S. universities. Just like industry, the power faculty is “graying,” and there is no guarantee that when they retire, their positions will be filled by new faculty in the power area. This is evidenced by the steady decline of many power programs in the U.S. As a result, there is a need for a critical assessment of the need for university-educated power engineers that industries will be hiring. It is important to understand the educational requirements of those industries and the factors that will attract students into the power field. There is also a need to look into the capability of university power programs at large research universities and at smaller universities to meet the expectations of the industries that will be hiring engineering program graduates.

The importance of the workforce issue has been recognized by the U.S. Government. As required by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE) submitted to Congress the report entitled “Workforce Trends in the Electric Utility Industry.” This report (along with referenced studies) pointed out a number of significant trends and found that: “Today, the power engineering education system in the United States is at a critical decision point. Without strong support for strategic research in power systems engineering and without qualified replacements for retiring faculty, the strength of our Nation’s university based power engineering programs will wane, and along with them, the foundation for innovation in the power sector to meet our energy challenges in the 21st century.”

We are highly concerned about the deterioration of our capacity to educate power engineers at U.S. universities. The concern is for all industries employing power engineers. To address this issue, one of the fundamental requirements that the universities have to meet is to ensure that our undergraduate power engineering programs are attractive to the new generations of students. The environment of power engineering has changed drastically in the last decade due to the unprecedented regulatory reforms and technological breakthroughs. However, our undergraduate power engineering curriculum has not kept pace with its fast changing environment. In order to attractive the best and brightest students to power engineering, we must take a holistic look at the undergraduate power engineering education and develop a national strategy.

The DoE report is an excellent beginning point for discussions on engineering workforce issues and recommendations for addressing the critical challenges in assuring an ample supply of new power engineers. The warning calls are being heard not only from government, but also from utilities, vendors, and consultants. Yet a consensus on the positive steps that need to be taken has not yet been reached. We believe that the reason for this lack of consensus is due, in part, to (1) lack of agreement on how serious the gap between the need for new engineers and the ability of universities to graduate them will be, and when it will begin to manifest itself and (2) lack of understanding of the integral relationship between university education and university research infrastructure.

2. NSF Workshop

This NSF sponsored workshop is to address critical issues related to the national challenge on the future power engineering workforce. The objectives of the workshop will be:

The workshop will be held during November 29-30, 2007, in Arlington, Virginia. We expect about 50 invited participants representing government, industry and universities.

The agenda of the workshop will incorporate the following issues:

November 29, Thursday AM (8:30-12:00)

Session: Supply and demand forecast for power engineers

A number of presenters representing industry and government organizations that have conducted workforce surveys will be invited. Possible presentation and discussion topics include:

• Structure and supply chains of the future electric power industry

• U.S. Department of Labor forecasts

• Practices for making organization-specific workforce forecasts

• Benchmarking studies to establish the “appropriate” number of engineers in today’s utilities

• Surveys of utility workforce planning efforts

• Management perspectives on demand for engineers: in-house vs. outsourcing, skills needed, public vs. private power, cross-industry differences, etc.

• Canada’s and Australia’s workforce studies: methods and results

• Results to date from the proposed IEEE PES engineering workforce survey.

November 29, Thursday PM (1:30-5:00)

Session: Future of university power engineering programs

This session will start with brief presentations on the status of power engineering programs in the U.S., future R&D needs for the power industry, and trends of government funding for power engineering. The session continues with breakout sessions that will be focused on educational innovation plan, industry technology innovation and R&D, university / industry / government collaboration, and outreach programs to attract students to power engineering.

Relevant issues include

• Future of undergraduate power engineering education

• Future of graduate power engineering education

• Status of U.S. power engineering programs: students and faculty; differences between research universities, and smaller research and instructional institutions

• Education of power engineers: curriculum, research universities vs. technical schools

• Contributions of university research in solving past industry challenges

• Need for university research to solve future industry challenges

• Requirements for sustaining university power programs: perspectives from administration and faculty

November 30, Friday AM (8:30-12:00)

Session: Executive Summit for the future power engineering workforce

Government, industry and university leaders participate in a roundtable on the power engineering workforce challenges.

Possible discussion topics include:

• Overview of the power engineering workforce issues

• Industry and government perspectives of workforce issues

• University R&D funding trends from industry, government

• Public policies toward R&D and education

• Need for sustaining university programs

• Options for meeting those requirements

We anticipate that some executives may not be able to attend the entire 2-day workshop. Therefore we believe that a summit on the morning of the second day is the best way to provide an overview of the workforce issues and have a high-level roundtable discussion on the visions and strategies from government, industry and university leaders.

November 30, Friday PM (1:30-3:30)

Session: Action Agenda for the future power engineering workforce

This discussion session is to summarize the recommendations and actions developed during the workshop.

Possible presentation and discussion topics include:

• Educational innovation plan

• Industry technology innovation and R&D

• University / industry / government collaboration

• Outreach programs to attract students to power engineering

3. Steering Committee of the NSF Workshop