Before the conversion of the Power PE Exam to computer based testing (CBT), you were responsible for your own resources and references on exam day. Now that you are no longer able to bring in your own books it really cuts down on the amount of resources that you will actually benefit from during the exam. Instead of overwhelming yourself with textbooks, your approach should be to find study material that will help you solidify concepts, improve your knowledge base on the topics, and improve your efficiency and familiarity with the NCEES^® Reference Handbook and the relevant codes. There are three categories of resources that will be your foundation during studying: (1) Study Materials, (2) NCEES^® Resources, and (3) Codes. Study materials include practice exams and study guides that will teach you the material necessary to pass the PE exam. NCEES^® resources include the exam specifications and the NCEES^® Handbook that will be your only source of equations during exam day. Codes are the codebooks listed in the NCEES^® exam specifications, that will be on the test. I will go through the books that you need in these categories that are either free or cheap.

You should spend only around $525 TOTAL on study material and references. I don’t think that you should spend thousands of dollars on material that you will only use once in your life.

NCEES Power Sample Exam ($53)

The sample exam provided by NCEES is the best way to figure out the type of problems that will be on the exam. You can also get a sense for the level of difficulty. The cost of this book is $40 and you get 80 problems. But this cost does not include shipping. The total cost with shipping to most places in the US is around $53. If you buy this book on Amazon with shipping, then the cost is roughly $70. You can check EBay for this book, but at the time of this post I was unable to find this book on EBay.

Link: https://account.ncees.org/exam-prep/388
Link: Sample Questions

NCEES^® Power Outline (Free)

The outline should be used to help guide your studying of the following materials and references. As you go through the material, you should only focus on the topics that are within this outline. This will help to save time. For example, you do not need to know complex math topics, fluids, ethics, etc.

Link: https://ncees.org/wp-content/uploads/Power-Dec-2020_CBT.pdf

NCEES^® Electrical and Computer PE Exam: Power Reference Handbook (Free)

The only resource you will have during the exam, other than the code books, is a searchable PDF version of the NCEES^® Power Reference Handbook. This resource includes a list of equations, tables, and references related to Electrical Power topics for the NCEES^® Power PE Exam. You may also use this Handbook to help guide your studying. However, you may still be expected to know concepts or simple equations that are not included in the Handbook.

The Handbook may be downloaded for free on you MyNCEES account. Be sure to check for the latest version of the Handbook and study from the PDF to practice using the search (Ctrl+F) function.

Link: https://account.ncees.org/login

Engineering Pro Guides Textbook ($45)

This technical study guide takes you through the key concepts and skills necessary to pass the PE exam and also has some problems. The guide follows the previously mentioned outline and is very comprehensive. It is available as a PDF, but it is also very cheap at only $45 for around 600+ of specific content for the PE exam. The guide covers all the necessary formulas, equations and terms needed to pass the PE exam. The guide also has a lot of figures to explain all the concepts and skills in an easy to understand way. It also has over 90 practice exam problems.

Link: https://engproguides.com/pe-power-technical-study-guide.html

Engineering Pro Guides Full Exam ($42)

You will need more problems besides the NCEES sample exam to practice and to hone your skills. Engineering Pro Guides has the cheapest exams. The Full Exam is $42 and has decent reviews and you are also able to ask questions from the author. There are two other exams available: the Final Exam $42 and References (Code) Exam $22, each with unique problems. Other exams cost around $59 to $100. The Engineering Pro Guides are closer in difficulty to the NCEES^® sample PE exam. The other exams are more difficult. You can also search for free exams online that do not come with solutions. Other ways to get more problems are to do the problems within the references below. Make sure to focus on the topics in the NCEES^® outline when you do those problems too.

Link: https://engproguides.com/pe-power-practice-exam-prep.html

NFPA 70, also known as the NEC^®, might be worth purchasing for study purposes. See the next section for discussion.

Link: https://engproguides.com/power-pe-exam-nfpa-references.html

2017 NATIONAL ELECTRICAL CODE (NEC®) [aka NFPA 70]
CODEBOOK PDF ($108) // HANDBOOK PDF ($201)

There will be several questions that reference NFPA 70, also known as the National Electrical Code (NEC). Most of the code questions on the Power PE Exam will be from this code. There is a free code version only available, see the previous section. If you are on a budget and are a quick learner, you can get by with the free version, but for exam purposes it is recommended that you purchase either the pdf codebook or handbook version. The PDF makes it much easier to study from. The NEC^® Codebook just contains the code, while the NEC^® Handbook contains additional explanations and guidance on how to use the book. See this link for pros and cons of the various NEC^® alternatives and discussion on the Codebook vs Handbook versions.

The NEC^® covers the safety requirements for electrical installations from an electricity customer’s point of connection to the electric utility company all the way to the electrical loads.

Link: Should I Purchase the NEC^®? Codebook or Handbook?
Link: NEC 2017 PDF Be sure to select the 2017 PDF version.

NATIONAL ELECTRICAL SAFETY CODE NESC USED FROM EBAY ($50)

The NESC, also known as ANSI 62, covers the safety requirements from the point of electricity generation to the utility customer’s point of connection. This also includes the transmission and distribution systems in between. There are two main products published by the NESC and they include the actual code and a handbook that provides a walk through on how to apply the NESC in practice. The handbook is more descriptive and provides figures and diagrams to better explain the code. For the exam, you only need the code and you should have a general idea of what is in this code and when it is applied, but the handbook will work as well. The cheapest 2017 version you can find will be sufficient for studying.

Complete Resource List

Link: https://engproguides.com/power-pe-exam-references.html