NEWS

Entergy Corporation has donated $28,700 to upgrade the electrical engineering power systems laboratories at Louisiana Tech. The Electrical Engineering Program is one of the largest majors within the College of Engineering and Science with over 200 students enrolled in the fall of 2009. Additionally, the Electrical Engineering Technology Program has about 100 majors.

Dr. Mickey Cox, professor of electrical engineering at Louisiana Tech, says the demand for electric power engineers and technologists will grow in the coming years and the new equipment purchased with Entergy funds will better prepare Tech students who are recruited for these positions.

Electric power companies, as well as numerous chemical, paper, and related industries, recruit Tech students who have a mastery of power systems.

The contribution from Entergy, together with funds approved by the university’s Student Technology Fee Board, will enable the purchase of over $80,000 of new equipment during 2009-2010. The modernization of the electric power systems laboratory will definitely better prepare students for the workplaces of the twenty-first century.

These laboratory courses focus on the subject of energy conversion, but the addition of power quality analyzers and dynamic signal analyzers will allow a significantly greater variety of experiments to be performed that are important in power distribution systems.

Entergy Corporation is an integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations. Entergy delivers electricity to 2.7 million utility customers in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas and has annual revenues of more than $13 billion with approximately 14,300 employees. Entergy regularly recruits electrical engineering, and other, majors from Louisiana Tech.

Written by Catherine Fraser