Spring 2027

Power Plant Technology

Covers design and performance of power plants for electric generation across fossil, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear fuels, including cycle analysis, component design, operation, control, economics, and environmental impact.

no offering record for this termCredits unavailable
Recorded instructors · Spring 2027 No instructors listed

Summary

1 / 7

Past student reviews · John Murphy

Homework assignments were described as fairly simple because the instructor emailed hints for each problem set.

What you’ll be able to do

  • Describe how electricity is produced in a power plant

  • Apply physical principles to model power plants including power output and efficiency

  • Observe and collect data on current issues and designs associated to power generation

  • Describe codes and regulations associated with power production, and how power is sold on the market and transmitted to the customer

  • Critically review scientific literature pertaining to power plant design

  • Effectively present detailed information regarding operation and maintenance of power plant components

Source: UW Guide 1 UW Guide 2

Grade history

↗
average GPA
letter grades
A
AB
B
BC
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All recorded terms · compare terms & instructors

Prerequisites

Course map

M E 361,CBE 310, 320, or CIV ENGR 324, graduate/professional standing, or member of Engineering Guest Students

ME/NE 565

This is a best-effort interpretation; check the catalog requirements above.

Prerequisite text tree

Professors

Spring 2027

No instructors recorded for this selection.

Historical instructors & teaching patterns

JOHN MURPHY is recorded teaching in Fall 2011, Fall 2013, Fall 2015, Fall 2017, Fall 2019. Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Recorded history may be incomplete and does not establish a future schedule.

Calendar & sections

Spring 2027

Schedule loads here as you scroll.

SectionModeEnrolled / capacityWaitlist

Times are Central. Select a meeting for details; export includes recorded dates for the selected sections.

Meeting source records
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Student experience

the class

Past student reviews · John Murphy

John Murphy taught engaging lectures that avoided direct textbook recitation and included guest speakers for diverse topics.

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.55 GPA, 68.4% A/AB (n=19 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.91 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=22 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.35 GPA, 55.9% A/AB (n=34 letter grades).

difficulty & workload

Past student reviews · John Murphy

Homework assignments were described as fairly simple because the instructor emailed hints for each problem set.

Past student reviews · John Murphy

Students found the course interesting due to the teaching style and guest speakers, recommending it highly.

Topics

  • Fossil, solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear fuel systems.
  • Thermodynamic cycle analysis and component design/performance.
  • Plant operation, control systems, economics, and environmental impact.

Skills

  • Cycle analysis, component design, plant operation, control, economics, and environmental impact assessment.
  • Modeling power plants using physical principles to determine power output and efficiency.
  • Understanding codes, regulations, market sales, and transmission of power.

Grades

Latest available · Fall 2025— not enough history to project Spring 2027.

average GPA
A / AB grades
letter grades
Instructor

Grade distribution · % of letter grades

A
AB
B
BC
C
D
F

Grades over time

Through Fall 2025

More grade details Grade mix, volume & source data

Where this course fits relative to

Latest available grades · Fall 2025 · all course levels

GPA

Higher than % of other courses in this group.

Course GPAs · red marks this course’s range

letter grades

More recorded grades than % of other courses in this group.

Typical course in this group: letter grades.

About this comparison

1316 courses over the same term, each with at least 30 recorded letter grades. Cross-listed courses count once. GPA is not a measure of difficulty or teaching quality. The typical course is the median by recorded grade count; tied values are not counted as lower. Grade counts describe course scale, not unique students or typical section size.

Descriptions compare GPA with this group’s average: at least 0.20 higher or lower; otherwise close to average. Section size uses median recorded enrollment: small up to 30, mid-sized 31–99, large 100+. Lectures and discussion/lab sections are described separately.

Sources & history

UW–Madison

Catalog & offerings

Descriptions, prerequisites, and recorded course offerings.

Catalog observation history

Observations at scan time; dates do not imply when a catalog change took effect.

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Selected offering source records

No offering records for the selected term.

Raw records 
[]
Rate My Professors

Student reviews

Original comments behind the course and instructor summaries.

Read original reviews
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Madgrades

Grade history

Recorded grade distributions by term, section, and instructor.

Explore recorded grades
Dataset & model

Recorded 2026-10-14

View the dataset on Hugging Face
Model outputs & technical records
Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B
LLM outputs across runs
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Full model traces

Recorded model configuration, reasoning, and tool conversations.

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Model & dataset provenance 
{
  "model": "Qwen/Qwen3.8-27B",
  "model_revision": "1d4bf0f2ff6012fd82039f2fa52739d0dd7c60c0",
  "task_version": "17",
  "output_id": "70561e7a1c5c0b5ce0b2e0c0905ff09a6ecffea0d325c8c546f41ed2bcd6b425",
  "requirements_status": "valid",
  "dataset_revision": "fc1811fa52e581ea57a35c0cf3343f8740a8ffbf",
  "observed_at": "2026-10-14 17:50:09.728220+00:00"
}