Grant offers smart program to PCC

A Department of Energy grant will allow Pratt Community College to develop curriculum for teaching Smart Grid Technology. The $750,000 grant will start in October and run for three years.

PCC was the only college in Kansas to receive a grant and one of only 20 in the nation. With the grant, PCC will be one of the first institutions in the nation to teach SGT. They will teach on a worldwide scale using the Internet.

“We’ll be doing all the training for the smart grid worldwide,” said Jerry Burkhart, PCC dean of technical instruction that applied for the loan. “We’re a pioneer in the central region of the country.”

The grant gives PCC the resources to build and expand the existing electrical power technology program and incorporate emerging technology to increase the efficiency of the distribution process, said PCC President William Wojciechowski.

Without those funds PCC would never be able to develop the curriculum. It takes research to train PCC instructors to develop the curriculum.

It will take trained personnel at power stations to understand and operate SGT and that is where the PCC grant comes in. The grant covers three positions: a full time director/curriculum developer, a full time curriculum developer/instructor and a part time clerical assistant. The director and curriculum developer will provide training on-line but first they have to be trained, Burkhart said.

Once the training is complete, the curriculum will be developed and instruction is expected to start within that three-year period.

“I think we will already be starting to deliver,” Burkhart said. “We’ll start regionally then move to state, then to national then to the world.”

At the end of the three-year grant period Burkhart expects the program to self-sufficient.

The college will be working with energy companies as they develop the curriculum. Westar and Midwest Energies will be working on the infrastructure to make the SGT possible. Westar also received a grant to put $19 million into the SGT infrastructure. They are the largest energy producer in the state, he said.

About 95 percent of the training will be computer based while the other five percent will be dedicated to physically tying the system to the power grid.

Eventually Westar wants PCC to train the SGT to all Westar employees and that’s a big chunk of people. Midwest also wants PCC training.

The distribution technology will include other forms of energy including wind, coal, gas, solar and geo thermal.

“We are looking at emerging technology,” Wojciechowski said.

Other colleges will also help with SGT development. Manhattan Area Technical College and Dodge City Community College are both working on cyber security.

Stanion Electric will also work with PCC as Stanion develops solar energy.

Smart Grid Technology will eventually allow power plants to monitor energy usage on a grid system in a city. When one portion of a grid needs more power, SGT will allow that city to transfer power from one grid to another within the same system, Burkhart said.

“We will be able to do that soon,” Burkhart said.

Currently the college is looking to purchase the software so they can teach through the World Wide Web. The college already has on-line capability but needs Web based.

The system will be so efficient that individual homes will be able to monitor their internal usage through interface with the power plant through the phone lines or Internet. The SGT is so efficient it would allow the homeowner to monitor the exact power usage of every appliance in the home add determine if something is not drawing power properly and take action to repair or replace the appliance, Burkhart said.

“It will allow us as homeowners to plan better energy usage,” Burkhart said. “In a nut shell it’s just an effective, efficient use of electrical power. That’s all,” Burkhart said.