About us
The change to a market structure in the Electricity Supply Industry worldwide has caused a radical change in all facets of power engineering - graduate recruitment, postgraduate education, research and academics. A period of downsizing meant that less graduates were required and the funding for higher education and research was no longer available. In addition, there was a lessening in traditional mentoring capacity within organisations. Consequently, a negative perception of the industry has developed among the younger generation.
As demand for graduates reduced, there has been an inevitable, significant and continuing decline in the ability of Australian university power engineering faculties to carry out teaching and research in almost all aspects of power engineering. In many cases, the viability of power engineering schools at many universities is in serious doubt.
These factors have created a growing industry wide concern over the future source of expertise and talent in the power engineering area. In particular, it has become evident that there is a widening gap between Australia's educational and research capabilities and the electricity industry needs.
In essence, power engineering is at crossroads.
The problem of the decline in power school funding and staffing and the shortage of power engineering graduates has been a subject of informal discussion over recent years at international and local levels. A number of publications over the recent years illustrate the wide spread concern including the UK, USA, Canada, New Zealand and Europe.
However, the energy industry is currently faced with unprecedented growth both in Australia and Worldwide with expenditure of approximately $30b forecast for the next 10 years. Also significant community challenges associated with:
- Climate change and environmental outcomes and
- Customer service from energy users in the increasing technological age will require power engineering professionals to provide the solutions.
The young power engineering graduates of today and in the future will truly be well placed to ‘make a difference’ in society.