Program facts and the nine course outlines in Shiva’s plan, taken from official uwaterloo.ca pages. Anything Waterloo doesn’t publish is marked “not published”.
LAST CHECKED 2026-10-14
These nine are the preferred portfolio from Shiva’s Gridcraft learning roadmap (protection, studies, distribution, DER, power quality, grounding, asset risk, converters). Waterloo lets you choose any 9 of 18 ECE 66xxPD courses; these are not prescribed by Waterloo.
Discuss in detail the basic structure, functional characteristics and protection schemes of the main components that make up a powers system, in particular generators, transformers, transmission lines, cables, loads, HVDC and FACTS controllers. Understand the modelling and simulation of these components for detailed electromagnetic transients analyses, as well as phasor models for power flow and stability studies.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
Understand the basic definitions and concepts associated with power systems analysis. Discuss in detail techniques and tools for power system analysis, with a practical perspecitve. The course will cover short circuit power flow, stability concepts including voltage, oscillatory, transcient and frequency stability.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
Power system protections schemes are designed primarily to minimize the duration of a fault as well as to minimize the number of customers affect by the fault. The scope of this course is to study the main elements and techniques for power system protection. The course is divided into two main parts; protective equipment and protective techniques. In the protective equipment; circuit breakers, relay, enclosures, fuses and isolating switches are discussed. Different protection techniques dedicated to protect feeders, transformers, generators and motors are discussed in the second part of the course. Recommended Background: Basic knowledge in power system engineering is required, basic knowledge in optimization techniques, statistics, and electric circuits.
Power system protection schemes are designed to ensure safe and reliable operation of the power system. Their main tasks include, reducing the fault duration, reducing damage to system equipments and life and minimize power interruptions to customers. The scope of this course includes understanding the basic philosophy and elements of protection system, studying the principles for protecting different elements and studying different technologies used in designing protective relays.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
This course deals with the essential aspects of distribution system engineering, starting with estimation of the loads on the network to the detail design of the distribution system networks. The contents of this course are divided into three categories: Planning, design and operation. In the planning part load forecasting, and planning strategies as well as distribution automation are discussed. The design part includes the design of sub-transmission lines, distribution substations, and primary and secondary systems design considerations. The operation part includes the voltage drop and power loss calculations, voltage regulation and application of capcitor to distribution systems. Recommended Background: Basic knowledge of power systems engineering is required, optimization techniques, statistics and electric circuits.
This course deals with the essential aspects of distribution system engineering, starting with estimation of the loads on the network to the detail design of the distribution system networks. The contents of this course are divided into three categories; Planning, design and operation. In the planning part load forecasting, and planning strategies as well as distribution automation are discussed. The design part includes the design of sub-transmission lines, distribution substations, and primary and secondary systems design considerations. The operation part includes the voltage drop and power loss calculations, voltage regulation and application of capacitor to distribution systems.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
The main objective of this course is to provide up-to-date knowledge about the technical and economical issues relating to the distribution generation. In addition to an introduction to various generating technologies, a more detailed part will be included discussing various applications of power electronics. The impacts of DG to the distribution system will be presented. The focus will be on electrical issues such as grid connection, protection, control, and power quality. In addition, the economical and regulatory issues will be addressed. Recommended Background: Basic understanding of modeling of power system elements and analysis techniques is required. Familiarity with a programming language and/or a simulation package such as EMTDC/PSCAD and MATLAB is desirable.
Conventionally electricity is generated in large central units that are connected to the high-voltage transmission system. The distribution networks are being used for delivering the electricity to the customers. Most electric distribution systems are designed, protected, and operated on the premise that there is a single source of electric power on each distribution feeder at any given time. Because interconnecting Distributed Resources (DR) (known as Distributed Generation DG) violates this basic assumption, there are special requirements for connecting to utility distribution systems. These technical requirements can be complex, blending traditional distribution engineering practices with added attention to power quality concerns, safety, and installation needs for advanced DR technologies. There are also many economical issues to be addressed because of the interconnection of different types of DG's. Distributed generation (DG) has the potential to play an important role in a future sustainable energy system. Properly applied distributed generation, installed on a significant scale, can have very positive effects on the environment, energy efficiency, security of supply and price of electricity paid by consumers. However there are still barriers, technical and non-technical, that are limiting the introduction and use of DG.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
The course addresses all dimensions of Power Quality (PQ) issues including mitigation strategies. The focus is mainly on qualitative concepts and comprehensive coverage. The course introduces PQ definitions, limitations, related international standards and mathematical techniques for PQ analysis of power systems. Different identification, localization and classification techniques for PQ problems will be investigated. The various kinds of PQ problems and their effect on the load/system equipment will be looked at in detail. The mitigation strategies such as passive filtering, active and hybrid power filtering, static VAR compensation, DVR, UPQC, etc. will be investigated. Areas covered include voltage sags, interruptions, transients, flickers, harmonics and modeling and simulation of utility systems. The grounding imperfection as a major cause for PQ problems will be addressed in detail. Moreover, requirements and impact of distributed generation (DG) on network power quality will be studied in detail. Effect of DG on voltage regulation, relaying, losses, islanding and standards will be examined. Recommended Background: Basic understanding of modeling of power system elements and analysis techniques is required. Familiarity with a programming language and/or a simulation package such as EMTDC / PSCAD and MATLAB is desirable.
This course addresses all the dimensions of Power Quality PQ issues including mitigation strategies. The focus is mainly on qualitative concepts and comprehensive coverage. This course introduces PQ definitions, limitations, related international standards and mathematical techniques for PQ analysis of Power Systems. Different identification, localization and classification techniques for PQ problems will be investigated. The various kinds of PQ problems and their effect on the load/system equipment will be looked at in detail. The mitigation strategies like passive filtering, active and hybrid power filtering, static VAR compensation, DVR, UPQC, etc will be investigated. Areas covered include voltage sags, interruptions, transients, flickers, harmonics and modeling and simulation of utility systems. The grounding imperfection as a major cause for PQ problems will be addressed in detail. Moreover, the requirements and impacts of distributed generation DG on the network power quality will be studied in detail. Effects of DG on voltage regulation, relaying, losses, islanding and standards will be examined.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
Grounding of power systems and equipment has great impact on system performance, system equipment integrity, safety of personnel as well as safety of the public at large. It acquires special relevance for distribution systems where grounding directly affects the reliability of supply to the customer, survivability of end-use equipment and safety of individuals. The main objectives of this course are - a) Discuss in detail the basic safety issues for low, medium and high voltage systems, b) Designing a reliable grounding system, c) Discuss the safety management and organizational structure and the human factor that affect electric safety.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
The course will discuss in detail the basic concepts of risk assessment and outage models of system components. It will discuss in details the concept of asset management and its main components, application examples about the risk evaluation of transmission lines, generators and substations will be considered.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.
This course covers a wide range of topics in power electronics including: power semiconductor devices with emphasis on their operating characteristics, power converter topologies for ac-to-dc, dc-to-dc, dc-to-ac and ac-to-ac conversions, multi-converters and multi-level converters, control techniques in power converters, modeling of power converters, applications of power converters, converter design aspects (snubber circuits, gate/base-drive circuits, thermal management, series/parallel combinations of switches), and computer simulation of power electronic systems. Recommended Background: Basic understanding of circuit analysis and control theory is required. Familiarity with electric machinery and power systems is desirable.
This course covers a wide range of topics in power electronics including: power semiconductor devices with emphasis on their operating characteristics, power converter topologies for ac-to-dc, dc-to-dc, dc-to-ac and ac-to-ac conversions, multi-converters and multi-level converters, control techniques in power converters, modeling of power converters, applications of power converters, converter design aspects (snubber circuits, gate/base-drive circuits, thermal management, series/parallel combinations of switches), and computer simulation of power electronic systems.
Official course page · Academic calendar
Department course page (outline.uwaterloo.ca requires UWaterloo sign-in; no public outline there). Dates/instructor details on department pages may be from an earlier offering.