FEEDER: Foundations for Engineering Education for Distributed Energy Resources

The challenges to accelerating grid-integrated distributed renewable technologies are three-fold: 1. The imminent retirement of an aging workforce in the electric utility industry will create a serious shortage of skilled workers, particularly power engineers. The number of graduating engineers is roughly half to two-thirds the number of utility replacements required each year, without even accounting for the need to integrate distributed renewable technologies into the Smart Grid. 2. The new technologies, procedures and protocols associated with both distributed power systems and an evolving Smart Grid will require more highly educated, trained, and multi-disciplined power engineers. 3. Legacy power engineering programs among U.S. universities are currently incapable of adequately meeting the impending needs of integrating renewable distributed technologies, most notably solar electric and wind electric systems, into the Smart Grid.