The educational role of personal computers in power system laboratories

A set of power-system laboratory exercises performed on a microcomputer system is described. The interactive graphics environment is provided by a 16 bit microcomputer with 1 MB of main memory coupled to a color-graphics terminal. Three laboratory exercises are analytically described, involving economic generation scheduling, load flow studies, and fault calculations. The student reaction to the computerized laboratory exercises is commented on, and the potential problems are pointed out. The effect of these exercises in developing the engineering intuition and integrating the power-system analysis education of the electrical engineering student is outlined