Power engineering, also called power systems engineering, is a subfield of electrical

engineering that deals with the generation, transmission, distribution and utilization of electric
power, and the electrical apparatus connected to such systems. Although much of the field is
concerned with the problems of three-phase AC power – the standard for large-scale power
transmission and distribution across the modern world – a significant fraction of the field is
concerned with the conversion between AC and DC powerand the development of specialized
power systems such as those used in aircraft or for electric railway networks. Power
engineering draws the majority of its theoretical base from electrical engineering.

Contents

 1History
 2Pioneering years
 3Twentieth century
o 3.1Power engineering and Bolshevism
o 3.2Power engineering in the USA
 4Power
 5Fields
 6Professional societies and international standards organizations
 7See also
 8References
 9External links

History[edit]

A sketch of the Pearl Street Station, the first steam-powered electric power station in New York City

Main article: Electrical engineering § History

Pioneering years[edit]
Electricity became a subject of scientific interest in the late 17th century. Over the next two
centuries a number of important discoveries were made including the incandescent light
bulb and the voltaic pile.[1][2] Probably the greatest discovery with respect to power engineering
came from Michael Faraday who in 1831 discovered that a change in magnetic flux induces
an electromotive force in a loop of wire—a principle known as electromagnetic induction that
helps explain how generators and transformers work.[3]
In 1881 two electricians built the world's first power station at Godalming in England. The
station employed two waterwheels to produce an alternating current that was used to supply
seven Siemens arc lamps at 250 volts and thirty-four incandescent lamps at 40
volts.[4] However supply was intermittent and in 1882 Thomas Edison and his company, The
Edison Electric Light Company, developed the first steam-powered electric power station on
Pearl Street in New York City. The Pearl Street Station consisted of several generators and
initially powered around 3,000 lamps for 59 customers.[5][6] The power station used direct
current and operated at a single voltage. Since the direct current power could not be easily
transformed to the higher voltages necessary to minimise power loss during transmission, the
possible distance between the generators and load was limited to around half-a-mile (800 m).[7]
That same year in London Lucien Gaulard and John Dixon Gibbs demonstrated the first
transformer suitable for use in a real power system. The practical value of Gaulard and Gibbs'
transformer was demonstrated in 1884 at Turin where the transformer was used to light up
forty kilometres (25 miles) of railway from a single alternating currentgenerator.[8] Despite the
success of the system, the pair made some fundamental mistakes. Perhaps the most serious
was connecting the primaries of the transformers in series so that switching one lamp on or off
would affect other lamps further down the line. Following the demonstration George
Westinghouse, an American entrepreneur, imported a number of the transformers along with
a Siemens generator and set his engineers to experimenting with them in the hopes of
improving them for use in a commercial power system.
One of Westinghouse's engineers, William Stanley, recognised the problem with connecting
transformers in series as opposed to parallel and also realised that making the iron core of a
transformer a fully enclosed loop would improve the voltage regulation of the secondary
winding. Using this knowledge he built the world's first practical transformer based alternating
current power system at Great Barrington, Massachusetts in 1886.[9][10] In 1885 the Italian
physicist and electrical engineer Galileo Ferrarisdemonstrated an induction motor and in 1887
and 1888 the Serbian-American engineer Nikola Tesla filed a range of patents related to power
systems including one for a practical two-phase induction motor[11][12] which Westinghouse
licensed for his AC system.
By 1890 the power industry had flourished and power companies had built thousands of power
systems (both direct and alternating current) in the United States and Europe – these networks
were effectively dedicated to providing electric lighting. During this time a fierce rivalry in the
US known as the "War of Currents" emerged between Edison and Westinghouse over which
form of transmission (direct or alternating current) was superior. In 1891, Westinghouse
installed the first major power system that was designed to drive an electric motor and not just
provide electric lighting. The installation powered a 100 horsepower (75 kW) synchronous
motor at Telluride, Colorado with the motor being started by a Tesla induction motor.[13] On the
other side of the Atlantic, Oskar von Miller built a 20 kV 176 km three-phase transmission line
from Lauffen am Neckar to Frankfurt am Main for the Electrical Engineering Exhibition in
Frankfurt.[14] In 1895, after a protracted decision-making process, the Adams No. 1 generating
station at Niagara Fallsbegan transmitting three-phase alternating current power to Buffalo at
11 kV. Following completion of the Niagara Falls project, new power systems increasingly
chose alternating current as opposed to direct current for electrical transmission.[15]
Twentieth century[edit]
Power engineering and Bolshevism[edit]

1929 poster by Gustav Klutsis

The generation of electricity was regarded as particularly important following the Bolshevik
seizure of power. Lenin stated "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the
whole country."[16] He was subsequently featured on many Soviet posters, stamps etc.
presenting this view. The GOELRO plan was initiated in 1920 as the first Bolshevik experiment
in industrial planning and in which Lenin became personally involved. Gleb
Krzhizhanovsky was another key figure involved, having been involved in the construction of a
power station in Moscow in 1910. He had also known Lenin since 1897 when they were both in
the St. Petersburg chapter of the Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class.

Power engineering in the USA[edit]

In 1936 the first commercial high-voltage direct current (HVDC) line using mercury-arc
valves was built between Schenectady and Mechanicville, New York. HVDC had previously
been achieved by installing direct current generators in series (a system known as the Thury
system) although this suffered from serious reliability issues.[17] In 1957 Siemensdemonstrated
the first solid-state rectifier (solid-state rectifiers are now the standard for HVDC systems)
however it was not until the early 1970s that this technology was used in commercial power
systems.[18] In 1959 Westinghouse demonstrated the first circuit breaker that used SF6 as the
interrupting medium.[19] SF6 is a far superior dielectric to air and, in recent times, its use has
been extended to produce far more compact switching equipment (known as switchgear)
and transformers.[20][21] Many important developments also came from extending innovations in
the ICT field to the power engineering field. For example, the development of computers
meant load flow studies could be run more efficiently allowing for much better planning of
power systems. Advances in information technology and telecommunication also allowed for
much better remote control of the power system's switchgear and generators.

Power[edit]
Transmission lines transmit power across the grid.

Power Engineering deals with the generation, transmission, distribution and utilization
of electricity as well as the design of a range of related devices. These
include transformers, electric generators, electric motors and power electronics.
Power engineers may also work on systems that do not connect to the grid. These systems are
called off-grid power systems and may be used in preference to on-grid systems for a variety of
reasons. For example, in remote locations it may be cheaper for a mine to generate its own
power rather than pay for connection to the grid and in most mobile applications connection to
the grid is simply not practical.