1.INTRODUCTION

Prof. A. Atputharajah, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, University of Jaffna, led a workshop on PSCAD that was arranged by IEEE PES Student Branch Chapter of University of Jaffna. The first session of this workshop, which was planned to last two hours, involved final-year Electrical & Electronic Engineering undergraduate students from the University of Jaffna’s Faculty of Engineering.

2.OBJECTIVE

This lesson’s major goal was to give students a basic understanding of how to use PSCAD, a useful tool for power systems analysis, and to persuade them of the value of learning and using it for this purpose. 

KEYNOTE SPEAKER OF THE EVENT

Prof. A. Atputharajah  

The University of Peradeniya awarded Prof. A. Atputharajah a BSc. in engineering with first-class honors in 1997, and the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST) awarded him a PhD in 2003. He worked as a senior lecturer for the University of Peradeniya’s Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department. He held the position of Department Head from October 2010 to October 2013. Last but not least, he worked with the power quality research group at the University Tenaga Nasional (UNITEN) in Malaysia in February and March 2013. For usage in electric vehicle battery charging stations, he created control methods for converters used in grid-connected solar plants. From August 2009 to June 2010, he was on vacation from his job at the University of Queensland in Australia to conduct research on “large scale power system blackouts.” At the Joule Center University of Manchester in 2007, he conducted more research on the regulation of power electronics of wind turbine generators on HVDC connections.In 2004 and 2002, he worked on “power electronic control applications on improving micro grid performance” as part of the European Micro Grid Project at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology (UMIST). In 2004, the KOICA sent him to KEPCO Korea for a training course in power engineering and management. He has been collaborating with Sri Lankan industry on energy-saving solutions since 2003. He holds memberships in the IESL, the Sri Lanka Energy Managers Association (SLEMA), and the Sri Lanka Association for the Advancement of Science (SLAAS). He is also a Senior Member of the IEEE and a Chartered Engineer. Controls of Power Electronics applied to Power Systems and Electric Machines is one of his key research interests.

AUDIENCE

Undergraduate Electrical & Electronic Engineering students from the University of Jaffna’s Faculty of Engineering who are passionate about power and energy were the event’s intended audience. Through a Facebook page and WhatsApp groups, students were informed about registration for events and their happenings. The majority of the replies were gathered from third- and fourth-year undergraduates, and registration was handled via a google form.

EVENT PROCEEDING

On May 26, 2023, at 4 p.m., the first session of the PSCAD workshop was held with a primary focus on the Electrical & Electronic Engineering Department’s final year students. Since we intended to provide each student hands-on experience using the technology, each student received a PC with PSCAD already installed. Prof. A. Atputharajah gave an overview of PSCAD initially. Following that quick introduction, the lecturer and the students got to work on modelling a straightforward power system, which increased the interaction in the class. The lecturer walked the students through each and every step of working on that example, and they were expected to follow along with him. Students had the chance to ask questions, obtain answers to their questions, and get help from the lecturer with any problems they had during the process.

Furthermore, the lecturer demonstrated some intriguing PSCAD tool features.  Throughout the programme, further examples including synchronous machines, HVDC, and active series filters were developed. The event finally came to a good conclusion.