Introduction

Academic institutions provide the initial instructions. Industry focused instruction is provided to new graduates by their employers.

The power industry needs to be very visible as a valuable, meaningful, and long-term career choice - to both students and new graduates. Within the power industry, appropriate business plans/models are necessary for identifying the work force requirement. Based on the work force requirement, succession planning (for the business) and professional advancement (for employees) need to complement each other. This approach, when applied diligently, will replenish the aging work force and keep the lights on.

Increase the Size of the Work Force Supply Pool

The existing work force in power industry is aging faster and faster, and the available size of the experienced resource pool is getting smaller and smaller. Nowadays, typical demographic in a power utility shows mainly two major groups; the well-seasoned veterans (or old-timers), and the eager rookies (or new-comers). In order to ensure constant and adequate work force resources, the power industry needs to look closely at the work force supply and demand situation.

Identify the Root Cause:  During the early nineteen nineties, many power industry companies were downsized, re-organized and re-engineered. Employment opportunities were very limited resulting in the Power Engineering enrollment in many universities becoming lower over the years. With low enrollment, various universities reduced the teaching faculties in Power Engineering. With this vicious circle, many universities could not adequately support the Power Engineering program, in terms of faculty size or teaching resources. The boom of “Dot Com” activities and the popularity of Information Technology (IT) enterprises created a sizeable drain from the limited available resources for Power Engineering.

Collaboration between Industry and Academia: To rebuild and strengthen the supply side of Power Engineering graduates, power industry and academia must recognize the fact that they need each other to be successful. The power industry needs to support academic institutions with financial contribution, curriculum review and suggestions, power industry insight and career opportunity outlooks. In return, academic institutions need to revitalize the Power Engineering program, increase the size of Power Engineering teaching faculty, align with the power industry work force requirement, and produce more Power Engineering graduates.

Similar to situations elsewhere, the power industry in Alberta, Canada encountered the same problem of short supply in Power Engineering graduates. To rectify this supply side problem, several key players in the Alberta power industry joined force with a provincial university in 2007 to form the Alberta Power Industry Consortium (APIC).

APIC’s mission statement states that: “Bring Alberta power companies together, with University of Alberta as the coordinating organization, to solve technical problems of common interest, to produce more well-educated graduates, to support professional development of current employees, and to promote cooperation and exchange in Alberta power engineering community.” 

Within APIC, there are six core members and two supporting organizations. The Six core members are:

• Alberta Electric System Operator - Utility Regulator
• AltaLink Management Ltd - Transmission Utility
• ATCO Electric - Transmission & Distribution Utility
• EPCOR - Transmission & Distribution Utility
• Fortis Alberta - Distribution Utility
• University of Alberta - Academic Institution
• The two organizations that are supporting the efforts of APIC, are:
• iCORE (Informatics Circle Of Research Excellence) - Albert’s provincial government research agency
• NSERC (Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada) - Canada’s federal government research agency

In the spring of 2008, an Industrial Research Chair in Power Quality was appointed at University of Alberta as a result of APIC’s initiatives. Based upon the funding allotted to this research chair, new and additional faculty members will be hired in the discipline of Power Engineering. This particular strategic move is expected to increase the size of the power industry work force supply pool.

To align with requirement and outlook of power industry, the existing Power Engineering curriculum was reviewed by APIC. Recommendations were accepted by University of Alberta to enhance course development.

Besides the increase in size of work force supply, other tangible benefits generated by APIC are as follows:

• Solve technical problems through collaborative research
• Support professional development
• Promote industry-wide cooperation

In addition to positive feedback, there were many valuable and visible achievements. One good example was the First Annual Power & Energy Innovation Forum held in November 2008. During this forum, technical staff from each consortium member did a presentation to highlight interesting projects and innovations, to share experience,  and to exchange knowledge.