The proposed plan will rebuild the electric power and energy systems program at the North Dakota Slate University through closely linked research and education efforts. The research and educational plans will integrate contemporary issues with traditional power systems concepts to prepare both undergraduate and graduate students for the new requirements of the industry. The research plan will advance the state of the art in reliability and cost assessment techniques with particular focus on distributed energy resources and microgrid architectures. The education plan consists of modernizing some existing courses and developing new courses to build a power and energy systems curriculum that is both comprehensive and contemporary.
Undergraduate students will also be involved in research projects; graduate students will be involved with contemporary original research. The proposed research and education activities will significantly strengthen the power program at NDSU, and provide it with the momentum it needs to grow into a larger and stronger program.
The unique and significant contribution of the proposed research is that it will develop reliability and cost assessment techniques that are suited to the evolving structure of the electric industry, anticipate the future course of the industry and provide effective, cutting edge tools for planning and designing future systems.
