Customer Reviews

Electric Power Systems: A Conceptual Introduction (Wiley Survival Guides in Engineering and Science)

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2 star:		(1)
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This book gives clear and concise explanations of electric power fundamentals in evocative language. While I might have occasional quibbles with terminology or heuristic approach (as did one of the earlier reviewers), the book succeeds at explaining electric power concepts in ways that are far more effective than other textbooks I've used. Many very technical books on this topic are unnecessarily complex, and this book is a bridge to that more technical literature, particularly for readers who are new to the field.

This is a very impressive textbook on electrical systems; quite readable, complete, and very thorough. Von Meier does a comprehensive job of explaining both the basics and the complexities of electrical system(s). As we become more aware of the problems with our aging national electrical distribution system, this book will be a great basic text for understanding what needs to be done.

As an electrical engineer I was really impressed that how clear and fluent the most difficult concepts were mentioned with a language that all formidable formulas in power system become easily understandable. I recommend this book to all electric power engineers and students.

As someone with a Physics degree trying to make it as an Electrical Engineer in a utility I have been handed a great many books. Most of these were useless. A typical one will include pages and pages of equations without ever stopping to explain what everything actually means. This book appears to be the exception. It really does start with basics and explain why every term is important.

I will give an example. Many books spend pages talking about the mathematics of reactive power. However they will neglect to say why it is important. The math is easy so most students probably just memorize an equation and decide they understand it. Or more likely look at the equation, remember they can look it up when they need it, and move on. This book does no such thing, the following quote from this book is the best explanation of what reactive power is and why it is important that I have seen yet:

"3.3.3 The Significance of Reactive Power
A low power factor is undesirable for utilities in terms of operating efficiency and
economics. Most customers, especially small customers, are only charged for the
real power they consume.15 At the same time, the presence of reactive power oscillating
through the lines and equipment is associated with additional current. While reactive
power as such is not consumed, it nonetheless causes the utility to incur costs,
both in the form of additional losses and in the form of greater capacity requirements.
Owing to its property of occupying lines and equipment while doing no useful work,
reactive power has been referred to jokingly as "the cholesterol of power lines.""

I am an applied computer science researcher who has worked closely on research with leading power engineering researchers for the last decade now. Even though I have an undergraduate degree in math (plus one in computer science) and an undergraduate minor in electrical engineering, I have found that trying to get insight into the power grid's dynamics is hard. Textbooks for EE students (typically a junior or senior class) assume a lot of EE background I do not have. And I have looked at every other supposed layman's overview of the grid I could find in recent years, and not one is anywhere close to this (most are superficial).

This book gives outstanding intuition into how our electric power grid really operates. Such knowledge is becoming even more essential as many experienced utility operators retire, as the operational characteristics a utility's footprint or an entire grid become less familiar with new kinds of renewable energy (with different characteristics) are being added, and as the grid becomes inherently less stable over time as the growth of generation and demand continues to outstrip that of transmission lines (more miles X megawatts each year, a big stability problem).

I certainly have all my computer science students, both graduate and undergraduate, who are working on our research read it carefully, and I recommend it to colleagues all the time. Most anyone who passed a few college math courses and any physics class (not even an engineering one necessarily) should be able to understand most anything in the book. Even people who have not quite had the above should be able to get a lot out of the book. I highly recommend it to layman in all fields, for training system operators, cyber-security experts and other computer scientists I routinely work with, and even to pointy-headed Dilbert managers --- at least they can become buzzword-compliant on the right things --- though I would lever let Dilbert's CEO read it.

Indeed, I work closely with a power researcher who is a member of the US National Academy of Engineering, and he is very impressed with this book.

Yes, this book is indeed easy to read. However, its use of false concepts makes it an untrustworthy source. The author claims to have a degree of some sort in physics and a Phd in something. Why then does she think that an emf is a force? Any freshman physics student should know it isn't. And that bit about wriggling electrons pushing each other down a conductor-oh, brother! That is the kind of garbage I would expect in a book from Delmar Publishing, not from Wiley or IEEE press! In the preface, she mentioned receiving a manual from workers in a control room. I suspect she studied that book and forgot her physics. I have a Masters in physics, I belong to the IEEE, and I work for a major electric utility. I've seen the kind of books they use-chock full of out of date concepts and fairy tales. Come on IEEE, how did you let this book slip out?