IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2021 - 95

book review

educating engineers
a time-honored text

THIS ISSUE'S " BOOK REVIEW "
colu m n discusses Electric Power
Principles: Sources, Conversion, Distribution and Use, second edition, written
by James L. Kirtley. The reviewer writes,
" As a power engineering teacher and researcher, I recommend this book as one of
the best electric power systems books. "

Electric Power Principle:
Sources, Conversion,
Distribution and Use
By James L. Kirtley
Electric Power Principle: Sources,
Conversion, Distribution and Use, the
2020 edition published by Wiley, is
aimed at educating engineers and researchers in designing, developing, and
operating new types of electric power
systems. The initial use of this text was
two courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT): 6.061 Introduction to Electric Power Systems and
6.685 Electric Machines. This text has
been used and revised for more than
three decades. It has educated numerous MIT undergraduate and graduate
students, including myself as a postdoctoral fellow when I was at MIT.
Kirtley is an engineer, researcher,
and educator in the field of electrical engineering, with an emphasis
on power systems and electric machinery. He has close to 50 years of
experience working in these areas
while at MIT, nurturing students over
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MPE.2020.3033370
Date of current version: 6 January 2021

january/february 2021

several decades. He worked for General Electric as an electrical engineer
in the large steam turbine generator department. He joined Satcon
Technology Corp. as
the vice president and
general manager of the
tech center and a chief
scientist. Based on his
contributions, he was
elected to the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, and he is a
Fellow of IEEE.
This book has 16
chapters. The first covers modern electric power systems'
basic structures. Chapter 2 covers elec-

trical engineering fundamentals, while
Chapter 3 expands on core theories
and transmission lines. Chapter 4 examines common polyphase systems,
and Chapter 5 covers electric circuit
theory with mathematic derivations.
Chapter 6 focuses on transformers for
both single- and three-phase structures, while Chapter 7 examines polyphase transmission and distribution
lines and introduces the per-unit system. Chapter 8 investigates the fundamentals of electromagnetic forces and
loss mechanisms based on the energyconversion process. Chapter 9 dives
into synchronous machines, ranging
from basic modeling to application
examples. Chapter 10 is about system analysis and protection, such as
fault handling, and Chapter 11 presents load flow in power systems with
Gauss-Seidel and Newtown-Raphson
iterative techniques.
Chapter 12 presents
the most com mon
power electronic circuits. Chapter 13, a
new chapter in this
edition, reveals energy storage, including
battery modeling and
its associated power
electronics. Chapter
14 elaborates on classical induction machine
d evelo p m e nt s , a n d
Chapter 15 examines
dc machines. The final chapter examines permanent magnet materials.

All of the key
concepts are
discussed from
fundamental
physics, with
progress step
by step.

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