The SEAPAC was held in Melbourne, Australia - 17-18 March, 2009.

The welcoming remarks by the chairman of the conference Rodney Hughes were followed by the first day keynote speaker - Simon Bartlett, from PowerLink, Australia, who discussed different issues related to the "Secondary Systems in Today' s Power Systems". The second day keynote speaker was Marco Janssen from UTInnovation, Netherlands, as a representative of the UCA International Users Group who talked about "Being a Smart User".

The conference is responding to the increasing pressure on utilities to provide ever more reliable and robust electricity supply to the consumer under tight regulatory requirements. It focused on best practices and offers a forum for discussion of protection, control and automation issues in the region. With new developments in protection and automation, it offers a timely review of the achievements of the industry in its current operations and helps the participants to take the lessons forward at a time of transition to a new generation of protection and control technology.

The 36 papers presented at the conference discussed project strategies for development, justification, implementation and project management as well as design objectives and solutions for green field projects, brown field developments through to full life cycle management of the asset. The ever increasing use of automation, Intelligent Electronic Device technology and IEC 61850 in substations made them the main subjects of papers represented at SEAPAC.