A Virtual Classroom Via Dataconferencing: A Multi-Institutional Experience

This paper presents the experience of five faculty from four universities who are co-developing and team teaching courses using the world-wide web (WWW). In particular two novel power engineering courses, Flexible Control of Transmission Systems and Flexible Control of Distribuction Systems, introduce the student to the application of power electronic-based controllers, known specifically as flexible AC transmission systems (FACTS) controllers, to enhance the performance of the transmission and distribution systems in an electric power system. In order to leverage faculty expertise in the various topics included in each course, a unique partnership was formed among five faculty from the following universities: University of Arkansas, Kansas State University, University of Missouri--Rolla and Purdue University. In order to achieve the most effective presentation, in the presence of geographical, cost, time and technology constraints, the co-developers decided to pursue various distance learning strategies to link the four universities together in a live interactive virtual classroom utilizing dataconferencing software and the WWW. In this paper we address the trials and tribulations of our experience. In particular, we discuss the use of video tape technology by mail, the use of live audio and video via an integrated service digital network (ISDN) approach, and lastly, dataconferencing software in conjunction with telephone conferencing. Each of these alternative methodologies are examined in detail and are compared and contrasted from a cost and pedagogical point of view based on our experience

Collaborative Distance Education in Power Engineering

This paper presents a perspective on offering shared-courses, or courses simultaneously offered at two or more universities via various distance educational frameworks. Over a three year duration, two senior/graduate level courses were jointly developed and offered to the students at the University of Missouri--Rolla, the University of Arkansas, Kansas State University, and Purdue University. This paper discusses the various distance educational technologies including two-way audio/visual via ISDN line, video-tapes, and web-based conferencing. Both instructor and student reactions to these mediums are included. Pedagogical methods appropriate for these mediums are outlined. The paper concludes with recommendations and strategies for engineering institutions who would like to course-share with other universities and industry

A Multi-Institutional Cooperative Approach to Power Engineering Education

This paper describes the multi-institutional cooperative effort between the University of Missouri--Rolla, Kansas State University, and the University of Arkansas to develop two new courses in flexible power system control

Integrating Research Results into a Power Engineering Curriculum

This paper presents summaries of the activities of six research active power engineering educators which were presented in a panel session of the same name at the IEEE Power Engineering Society Winter Meeting on February 3, 1997 in New York City, USA. Each of the panelists discusses how research results are incorporated into courses and how students benefit from this approach

Teaching old dogs new tricks: the effectiveness of community-based social marketing on energy conservation for sustainable university campuses

The paper presents a community-based social marketing (CBSM) study that was conducted at Kansas State University (KSU) to determine potential strategies to decrease energy consumption on college campuses. The study was supported by a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) project, “Earth, Wind, and Fire: Sustainable Energy for the 21st Century.” The ultimate goal of this research is to establish an effective campaign to make KSU a more sustainable community while ensuring that the needs and concerns of individuals-specifically, laboratory scientists-on campus are addressed as well. This approach to sustainability has the capability of motivating and empowering building users and managers to not only make KSU's campus more sustainable but also to stretch beyond the boundaries of the university in the future

ADABOOST+: an ensemble learning approach for estimating weather-related outages in distribution systems

Environmental factors, such as weather, trees, and animals, are major causes of power outages in electric utility distribution systems. Of these factors, wind and lightning have the most significant impacts. The objective of this paper is to investigate models to estimate wind and lighting related outages. Such estimation models hold the potential for lowering operational costs and reducing customer downtime. This paper proposes an ensemble learning approach based on a boosting algorithm, AdaBoost+, for estimation of weather-caused power outages. Effectiveness of the model is evaluated using actual data, which comprised of weather data and recorded outages for four cities of different sizes in Kansas. The proposed ensemble model is compared with previously presented regression, neural network, and mixture of experts models. The results clearly show that AdaBoost+ estimates outages with greater accuracy than the other models for all four data sets

Two-phase multi-objective evolutionary approaches for optimal generation scheduling with environmental considerations

This paper presents novel two-phase multi-objective evolutionary approaches for solving the optimal generation scheduling problem with environmental considerations. Two different multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEA) based on Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) and Archived Multi-objective Simulated Annealing (AMOSA) are presented in the paper. In the first phase, this approach formulates the hourly optimal generation scheduling problem as a multi-objective optimization problem which simultaneously minimizes operation cost and emission, while satisfying constraints such as power balance, spinning reserve and power generation limits. Results of the first phase are compared and SPEA2, which provided better results, is used for the second phase to obtain the optimal schedules for the 24 hours. The minimum up/down time and ramp up/down rate constraints are incorporated in the second phase. A case study for a 10-unit test system is carried out to illustrate the application and the effectiveness of the proposed approach

Bayesian network model with Monte Carlo simulations for analysis of animal-related outages in overhead distribution systems.

This paper extends previous research on using a Bayesian network model to investigate impacts of time (month) and weather (number of fair weather days in a week) on animal-related outages in distribution systems. Outage history (outages in the previous week) is included as an additional input to the model, and inputs and outputs are classified systematically to reduce errors in estimates of outputs. Conditional probability table obtained from the historical data are used to estimate weekly animal-related outages which is followed by a Monte Carlo simulation to find estimates of mean and confidence limits for monthly animal-related outages. Comparison of results obtained for four cities of different sizes in Kansas with those obtained using a hybrid wavelet/neural network model shows consistency between the two models. The methodology presented in this paper is simple to implement and useful for the utilities for year-end analysis of the outage data to identify specific reliability related concerns

Economic feasibility of owning of a small wind generator

People looking for solutions to global warming and rising energy costs may see solar and wind energy as a high-risk low-reward solution. The aim of this research is to develop a Monte-Carlo based method for determining an expected amount of energy production for these types of systems and to test this method on one type of system