A new Center for Substation Automation and Energy management Systems (CSAEMS) was opened on 27 September 2011 at the Department of Electrical Engineering, Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT), Cape Town, South Africa.
The establishment of the Center was funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) and was officially opened by the acting Deputy Director-General for Socio Economic Partnerships in the DST, Mr. Imraam Patel, and the Vice Chancellor of CPUT Prof. V. Tanga during the first day of the Seminar "IEC 61850 - Edition 2 and its Impact", presented by Prof. A. Apostolov

The CSAEMS seeks to contribute to addressing the need in South Africa for research infrastructure development that supports human capital development, research, innovation, and knowledge transfer in the field of metering, monitoring, protection, automation and control of power systems.

Particular attention is paid to current and emerging standards, such as the IEC61850 and IEC 61970, as a framework within which to develop coursework and explore experimentation and research questions, for the purposes of undergraduate and postgraduate student education, technician and engineer training as well as retraining, and undertaking of joint projects with the electric power industry.