Course Selection

This web-page summarizes the courses I believe that is useful to build you a strong background in power system engineering and extend your capability beyond it.

New PHD Students: here is the email from Dr. Franzon regarding suggestions for how many credits to take:

"If you are taking courses, I suggest that you up your research credits so you are taking a total of 12 hours. That way you can drop a course that is not working out and still stay full time. Please note:

  1. You must drop by the last drop date (Oct. 18) if you are dropping a course. (Or you can stay at 12 CH).

  2. The condition to get an S for the research credits (ece 895) is set between you and your advisor.

  3. This eventually saves your advisor tuition funds as once you complete 72 CH you can go down to 3 CH and stay full time.

  4. 12 CH costs the same in tuition as 9.

  5. If you are on an F-1 visa or an RA or TA you must be enrolled full time (9+ CH) by 5 pm Sept. 4.

Senior PHD students: Please remember that if you have completed 72 CH beyond the BS as per your PhD plan of work, then you only need to enroll in 3 CH of ECE 895. The system will deem you as being full time. Enrolling in more just wastes your advisor's tuition funds.

Undergraduate

Each year, I talk with a number of undergraduate students who ask me for course suggestions and career advice. I summarize my suggestions here and hope that will provide some guidance when you are making decisions. I wish you all be very successful in coursework and enjoy the life in the Wolfpack family!

    1. Core: Calculus I and II, Physics, Computer Systems, ECE Lab, Electric and Electronic Circuits, Linear Systems, Electromagnetic Fields, Programming, Matlab, Logic Design, Control, Analog and Digital Systems, Communication (good for SCADA and relay),

      • (Introduction: ECE109, ECE200, ECE209, ECE220, ECE211, ECE212)

      • (Foundation: ECE301, ECE302, ECE303, ECE305, ECE306, ECE308, ECE310)

    • Power System Related:

      • ECE305 ECE 305 Principles of Electromechanical Energy Conversion

      • ECE 451 Power System Analysis

      • ECE 452 Renewable Electric Energy Systems

  1. If you want to go take some graduate school courses in power system areas, here are the options

    • ECE550: Power System Operation and Control (Dr. Mesut Baran)

    • ECE551: Smart Electric Power Distribution Systems (Dr. David Lubkeman)

    • ECE552: Renewable Electric Energy Systems (Dr. Mesut Baran)

    • ECE516: Systems Control Engineering (Dr. Mo-Yuen Chow)

    • ECE585: Utility Business (Dr. Wenyuan Tang)

    • ECE586: Communication SCADA Smart Grid (Dr. David Lubkeman)

    • ECE581: Electric Power System Protection (Dr. Mesut Baran)

    • ECE592: Topic#40: Power System Transients Analysis (Dr. David Lubkeman)

    • ECE 592-074 Data Analytics for Power Engineering (Arnie de Castro (adecast@ncsu.edu), Wenyuan Tang (wtang8@ncsu.edu).

    • ECE753: Computational Methods for Power Grid Operation and Planning (Dr. Ning Lu)

    • ECE726: Advanced Feedback Control (Dr. Aranya Chakrabortty)

    • ECE736: Power System Stability (Dr. Aranya Chakrabortty)

  2. Electives: Find your specialization: Power Systems Basics, Protection Relay, Machine, Renewable Energy, Smart Distribution, Control, Signal Processing

    • Specialization in power: ECE305 (Principles of Electromechanical Energy Conversion), ECE451 (Power System Analysis), ECE452 (Renewable Electric Energy Systems), ECE434 (Fundamentals of Power Electronics), ECE 453 (Electric Motor Drives)

      • Signal Processing: ECE 435 (Elements of Control), ECE421 (Introduction to Signal Processing),

    • ECE407 (Introduction to Computer Networking) is useful if you are interested in communication related job (SCADA, relay, etc)

    1. Prepare for the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) exam: E490 FE Preparation course (looks like the pass rate of our ECE students is 22/23 between Jan-June 2017.

  1. Senior Design: find a project in a power related area (Solar, Power Electronics, Battery, Electric Vehicles, Protection, etc.)

  2. Co-op: Try to find a co-op position that allows you to rotate among a few positions. This will give you a more complete view of an organization. Co-op often leads to a better understanding of your course work and will make your resume stronger.

  3. Internship: Try to find an internship in power related area. Internship often leads to hiring decisions. I suggest you find internship at a renown company with a strong intern program so you can be mentored by an experience engineer or engineers. You need to discuss this when you interview with the company and try to understand what experience they can bring to you.

  4. Summer research with professors: If you are interested in graduate programs, you should consider work with a professor or his/her group over the summer to see if you like conducting research. Usually we pay students 29 hr per week with a salary around 10-12 $/hr for undergraduate students. We sometimes will increase the hourly salary if you work more than 29 hours per week. We don't like students who jump around projects or try to use this opportunity to fill in their gaps. We don't expect undergraduate students to deliver results but we hope they treat the opportunity seriously and will learn from the experience.

Master

  1. Accelerated Master: double count 4 courses. Need to select this option as rising juniors.

  2. Electric Power System Engineering: For students who want to graduate as a power engineer that has a broad range of knowledge in power system, business, and communication skills. Check out this program. Our past EPSE students have very good job offers and it only needs you 1 to 1.5 years to complete the program.

  3. Master with Thesis: If you want to work with a professor and get research experience and an indepth knowledge of a certain area, you can do a master with thesis. Usually those students will stay at least 2 years to finish their master degree. The students have a higher motivation to doing research but are not sure if they will go for a Ph.D. degree.

  4. Master students plan of work guidelines can be found here (attached at the end of this page too)

PHD (Notes to share for Students in MyGroup)

This is just a reference I made to my students.

You will need to take the core courses from power systems and then select a few courses from outside ECE department. I recommend the following from the perspective of my research group. I recommend you take 3 courses in the first and second semester if you starts without a master degree. Then take 1 course and audit one plus 9 research credits or take 2 courses plus 6 research credits per semester so that you can do research projects and start to write papers.

  1. Core courses:

      • ECE550: Power System Operation and Control (Dr. Mesut Baran)

      • ECE551: Smart Electric Power Distribution Systems (Dr. David Lubkeman)

      • ECE552: Renewable Electric Energy Systems (Dr. Mesut Baran)

      • ECE516: Systems Control Engineering (Dr. Mo-Yuen Chow)

      • ECE534: Power Electronics

      • ECE585: Utility Business (Dr. Wenyuan Tang)

      • ECE586: Communication SCADA Smart Grid (Dr. David Lubkeman)

      • ECE581: Electric Power System Protection (Dr. Mesut Baran)

      • ECE592: Topic#40: Power System Transients Analysis (Dr. David Lubkeman)

      • ECE 592-074 Data Analytics for Power Engineering (Arnie de Castro (adecast@ncsu.edu), Wenyuan Tang (wtang8@ncsu.edu).

      • ECE753: Computational Methods for Power Grid Operation and Planning (Dr. Ning Lu)

      • ECE726: Advanced Feedback Control (Dr. Aranya Chakrabortty)

      • ECE736: Power System Stability (Dr. Aranya Chakrabortty)

  2. Statistics: (at least 1)

      • ST511 (Exp Stat Bio Sc I) by Dr. X. Jessie Jeng

      • ST512 (Exp Stat Bio Sc II)

      • ST501: Fundamentals of Inference I

      • ST502: Fundamentals of Inference II

      • ST503: Fundamentals of Regression

  3. Computer Science and Engineering and Communication and Networks:

  1. Operational Research

      • OR/ISE/MA505 – Linear Programming

      • OR705 – Large Scale Linear Programming

      • OR/MA/ST/ 706 – Nonlinear Programming

      • OR 709 Dynamic Programming

    • ISE/OR 762 – Stochastic Simulation Techniques

  1. Industry Engineering

      • IE723 (Production Planning, Scheduling and Inventory Control) by Dr. Tom Hodgeson

      • IE789 Soft Computing by DR. Fang.

      • ISE 505: Linear Programming

  2. Math (Linear algebra and numerical analysis):

      • Linear Algebra: online by 3Blue1Brown: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZHQObOWTQDPD3MizzM2xVFitgF8hE_ab

      • MA 523, Matrix Analysis and Applied Linear Algebra I, by Dr. Carl Meyer

      • MA 723, Matrix Analysis and Applied Linear Algebra II, by Dr. Carl Meyer

      • MA 580 (Numerical Analysis I) by Dr. Ilse Ipsem

  3. Control and Power Electronics

      • ECE536: Digital Control

      • ECE732: Dynamic Control of Electric Machines

      • ECE561: Embeded system

      • ECE534: Power Electronics

      • ECE792-1: Advanced Power Electronics

    1. Writing class:

      • ENG 626 Advanced writing for Empirical Research

  1. Economics: micro-electronics

      1. Book: Principles of Microeconomics, 7th Edition (Mankiw's Principles of Economics) 7th Edition: I also highly recommend the Chinese version of this book to all incoming Chinese PHD students.

  1. Optimization: Power System Optimization Modeling in GAMS: Get access to the ebook Link from NC state library

  2. Signal Processing and Communication

  1. matlab tutorials

    1. matlab for training NN https://youtu.be/xOzh6PMk21I

    2. matlab for quadratic optimization: https://youtu.be/U1sUtXxUuzs

Courses Website

  1. ECE 792 Moodle Site

  2. ECE 451 Moodle Site

  3. ECE 895 Moodle Site