What Is the IEEE Power Engineering Review?

The IEEE Power Engineering Review was a periodical published by the IEEE Power Engineering Society that provided accessible summaries of the research, standards activity, and technical developments appearing in the Society's more specialized journals and transactions. Running from the 1980s until its eventual absorption into what became the IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, the publication served as a digest and news vehicle for power engineering practitioners who needed to track a broad field without reading each technical paper in full. It occupied a distinct niche in the IEEE publication portfolio: less archival than a transactions journal, more technically substantive than a general membership newsletter.

The Power Engineering Society, which sponsored the publication, traces its organizational origins to the early years of IEEE itself. The society was originally formed as the Power Group in 1964 and was renamed the Power Engineering Society in 1970, becoming the IEEE Power and Energy Society in 2007. Throughout these transitions, the society maintained a commitment to serving both the research and practicing engineering communities, and the Review reflected that dual audience throughout its publication history.

Editorial Scope and Format

The Review published brief technical summaries, invited overview articles, and news items covering topics central to electrical power systems: generation, transmission, distribution, protective relaying, power electronics, and grid stability. Unlike the IEEE Transactions on Power Systems or the IEEE Transactions on Power Delivery, the Review did not function as an archival publication for primary research. Its purpose was to translate and digest the results appearing in those venues for an audience of practicing engineers who needed current awareness rather than deep technical exposition. Historical issues are preserved and accessible through IEEE Xplore, where they remain part of the permanent record of the power engineering literature.

Transition to IEEE Power and Energy Magazine

As the scope of power engineering expanded to encompass renewable energy integration, smart grid systems, and energy policy questions, the Society reorganized its publication offerings. The Review's digest-and-summary model was incorporated into the broader charter of IEEE Power and Energy Magazine, which launched with the Society's 2007 renaming and adopted a similar accessible style while adding policy and environmental dimensions that the older publication had not covered. The IEEE Power and Energy Society describes this evolution as a response to the growing overlap between power engineering and energy systems policy, two areas the earlier Review had kept largely separate.

Archival Significance

The historical articles from the IEEE Power Engineering Review hold value for researchers studying the development of electrical grid technologies, the evolution of power system standards, and the institutional history of the power engineering profession. The Engineering and Technology History Wiki has collaborated with IEEE to make historical articles from the Review freely available, documenting how the field addressed challenges including long-distance transmission, load forecasting, and fault protection over several decades.

Applications

The IEEE Power Engineering Review informed and supported work in:

• Electric utility operations and grid management
• Power systems protection and relay engineering
• Energy policy and standards development
• Continuing education for power engineering practitioners
• Historical research on electrical infrastructure development