The 61st Annual Georgia Tech Protective Relaying Conference was held 2-4 May at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center located in Midtown Atlanta. This is the oldest running annual conference in North America (and maybe in the world) dedicated to the issues of electric power systems protection and control. It is attended by specialists in the field predominantly from the Eastern and Central parts of the United States. Due to the high quality of the papers and good balance between utilities and vendors representation, the  international participation is steadily increasing.

Atlanta is a young city, even by American standards. The land belonged to the Creek and Cherokee Indians. The first white settlement, Fort Peachtree, was established on the banks of the Chattahoochee River was founded as a rail terminus and through the years has grown into a modern city with a beautiful mixture detailed old buildings and glass and concrete skyscrapers. Atlanta is the Capitol city not only of Georgia, but also of the southeast, a city of the future with strong ties to its past.  It hosted the 1996 Olympic games and is also home of the world headquarters of Coca-Cola.

The Protective Relaying Conference is hosted by Georgia Tech which was founded on October 13, 1885 as the Georgia School of Technology. It opened its doors in October 1888 to 84 students. In 1948, the name was changed to the Georgia Institute of Technology to reflect a growing focus on advanced research.

Throughout its long history, Georgia Tech has always focused its efforts on preparing students to use their innovative skills and strong work ethic to solve real-world problems and improve the lives of people around the globe. The same ideas are reflected in the relay conference and its focus on the practical aspects of protection and control of electric power systems under abnormal conditions.

41 papers covering a wide range of topics were presented by protection experts in 10 sessions. While some papers were of tutorial nature, others discussed IEC 61850 and its applications, advancements in transmission, substation and generator protection, testing and cyber security. Most of the time two sessions ran in parallel, thus allowing sufficient time for presentations and discussions, while at the same time offering a choice of topics to the attendees.

After the closing of the sessions the participants had the opportunity to visit the hospitality suits of leading manufacturers and become familiar with the latest developments in power system protection and control technology.

Terry Boston, Executive VP of Tennessee Valley Authority was the Keynote Speaker at the conference luncheon and talked about "Blackouts - Whose 'Fault' Is It?" At the end of the luncheon Walt Elmore presented the 2006 Best Paper award (carrying his name) to Dr. Alexander Apostolov for his paper "Zone 3 distance protection - Yes or No?".

The relay conference was preceded at the same venue by the 10th Georgia Tech Fault and Disturbance Analysis conference.