There are three areas of focus within the Energy Systems field:
The high-power energy systems area studies the efficient creation and use of energy as it is applied to high-power applications like utility systems, transportation systems, wind farms, hydro electricity generation and solar power farms, to name a few. These courses study energy at a systems level. Students will learn how energy is generated and transmitted efficiently to the homes, businesses and industries connected to energy grids. Students also learn about motor drives and power electronics.
Organizations like Hydro One, OPG, TTC and alternate energy companies that utilize wind and solar power employ graduates with this knowledge.
Low-power energy systems involve power supplies to a wide range of systems, from laptops and cell phones to hybrid vehicles. It is important to create efficient, cheap and long-lasting energy supplies for the products we use and rely on. One goal is to create things that can run longer on less energy. In this area students will learn how to create these energy systems and also how to design power supplies for systems like highly efficient lighting systems like LEDs and the new florescent lights. These lights use less power than traditional incandescent light bulbs and each employs a small, built-in power supply so that the light utilizes energy more efficiently.
Careers include IC design, the aerospace industry, the auto sector, transportation systems, and the computer industry. Companies like AMD, Toshiba, Intel, Samsung, and many others employ these engineers.
The control and energy systems area targets the emerging demand for systems engineers working in the area of highly distributed power systems. The emphasis of these courses is on systems-level analysis and design of large-scale systems, rather than on component level analysis. Emphasis is also placed on the interplay between control principles and energy systems, to confront one of the fundamental challenges today: how to regulate and render stable, an increasingly decentralized adaptive power grid. Students in this stream will first acquire knowledge in fundamentals: probability and random processes, field and waves and electronics. Communication systems, signal processing, and computer networks are studies as enabling technologies in the power industry.
Prospective careers for this stream graduates include all aspects of large scale power generation and distribution and alternate energy systems, such as wind and solar power.