Cincinnati State to offer ‘Smart Grid’ major

February 3, 2010

The Ohio Board of Regents has approved a new major at Cincinnati State centering on “Smart Grid’’ technology, which involves the way households, businesses and factories use electric power.

Cincinnati State will offer the Smart Grid major starting in autumn of 2010 as part of its power systems engineering technology program.

Utility companies across the country, with recent support from the federal government, have begun making upgrades to the electrical grid that distributes energy from power plants to customers’ homes.

A key feature of these upgrades is the installation of communications equipment and a new generation of meters (typically for electricity, and in some instances for natural gas). This equipment allows information to be immediately transmitted to the utility company – and to the customer.

Proponents argue that such system upgrades will not only improve efficiency, but could eventually lead to a reduction in energy use. The Electric Power Research Institute, for example, has estimated that improvements to the nation’s electric distribution and transmission systems could cut energy use by 4 percent over the next two decades.

In October Duke Energy was awarded $200 million in federal stimulus funds to accelerate the installation of “smart’’ electric meters in its customers’ homes and businesses. Duke was among 100 utilities nationally to receive such grants.

According to Larry Feist, chairman of the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Major at Cincinnati State, the new generation of household utility meters and the “smart grid’’ system that they herald bring implications that go far beyond how utilities perform their meter reading chores. For example:

• Smart meters will eventually be able to give customers detailed feedback about how much energy their appliances, lights and other devices are using.
• Utilities will be able to quickly and precisely identify the location of outages, and automatically reroute power around problem areas to give the grid a degree of “self-healing’’ capability.
• Utilities will be able to reward customers who voluntarily conserve power during peak usage periods. Utilities would also be able, if regulators give them permission, to cut off power during an emergency to prevent brownouts.
• Customers who install solar panels, windmills, fuel cells or other on-site energy sources will be able to sell excess power to the utility.

Feist said the Smart Grid major is designed to capitalize on both the short term demand for technicians to install new generations of electric and gas meters, and on the longer-range need for specialists who will be able to maintain the new systems and work on the distribution and transmission aspects of the electrical grid.

Officials at Duke Energy say they believe the field has considerable potential.

“Smart, digital technology is changing the face of the energy industry in much the same way wireless changed the telephone business,” said Mark Wyatt, Duke Energy’s vice president of smart grid and energy systems. “Having a major devoted to understanding how this technology integrates with today’s grid is an important first step in preparing tomorrow’s energy professionals.”

While the new major will be oriented toward the electric utility industry, Cincinnati State officials said they believe the skills students acquire will also have broad application in other industries. Moreover, they noted, students who complete the associate degree program at Cincinnati State will have standing to pursue a bachelor’s degree elsewhere.

The Smart Grid major at Cincinnati State will be based on the traditional power systems engineering technology program. Students will study such staples as physics, algebra and calculus, along with such program standards as “Direct Current Circuit Analysis,’’ “Alternating Current Circuits Lab,’’ “Introduction to the National Electric Code’’ and “Power Systems Design.’’

Students will also take a sequence of courses devoted specifically to the smart grid, along with the instrumentation and control systems that they are likely to encounter when they reach the workplace. They will also study the distribution and transmission components of the system – the movement of electricity from a power plant to substations, and from one region of the country to another.

As with most programs at Cincinnati State, the Smart Grid major will include a co-op requirement designed to give students on-the-job experience before they graduate.