An event that brings together protection and control specialist from around the world.

The International Protection Testing Symposium (IPTS) was held at the Borsensale in Vienna, the beautiful capital of Austria, on 13 and 14 October, 2009.

The symposium is an event that brings together protection and control specialist from around the world to discuss different issues related to the testing of devices and systems in order to improve the security and reliability of electric power systems.

The keynote speaker for the symposium was Dr. Alexander Apostolov, Editor-in-Chief of the PAC World magazine, who spoke about "Signals of the Future" – the challenges for testing multifunctional intelligent electronic devices and distributed protection and control systems in an environment characterized by the shifting from the analog signals of conventional systems to the communications messages of IEC 61850 based solutions.

Participants from Europe, Asia, Africa, America and Australia presented thirty papers describing their experience and discussing requirements, methods and tools for testing.

The papers covered a wide range of issues that can be grouped in several main categories:

• Application of IEC 61850 in substations and between substations and its impact on the requirements, methods and tools for testing
• Automatic testing and other methods for improving the efficiency of testing
• Testing of distance, differential and other protection functions and schemes
• Testing under dynamic and power swing system conditions
• Testing of power quality monitoring devices
• Protection refurbishment and maintenance and their impact on testing

Each paper presentation was followed by discussions that allowed the presenters to clarify some issues covered in the paper and the participants to express their opinion or share their experience on the subject.

The symposium dinner was held at the Technical Museum of Vienna. It gave the participants the opportunity to explore the "Energy" exhibition and have in a relaxed atmosphere friendly discussion about technical and other issues.

At the end of the second day of the symposium, the attendees enjoyed folklore music at the charming Viennese Heurigen Parlor.