The Biennial Session of CIGRE is held in Paris, France every even numbered year and is the most important CIGRE event. It brings together more than 2500 delegates from all the parts of the world. Nearly 400 papers, covering all the fields of CIGRE, are discussed are discussed at the conference.
The conference, as usual, was held in Palais de Congres - a 41 thousand square meters building located at the crossroads of Parisian life. Since its creation by the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry in 1974, it has played an important role in the economic life and cultural development of the French capital.
The Palais des Congrès was expanded and renovated in 1999 and offers the perfect setting for the CIGRE Sessions.
The 2006 Paris Session was attended by 2630 specialists from around the world - evenly representing utilities, manufacturers, consultants and educators. A total of 390 papers on 45 preferential subjects submitted from member countries National Committees were accepted for inclusion in the conference program. Considering everything that Paris can offer to a visitor in the summer, one can imagine the dedication and love of the attendees of their work to make them spend many hours attending working group meetings, paper sessions or talking with industry experts on the exhibition floor.
As part of the 41st CIGRE Session, Study Committee B5 "Protection and Automation" organized an open technical discussion based on two preferential subjects:
For each preferential subject, specialists form around the world had submitted papers that were reviewed by a member of the Study Committee (the so-called Special Reporter). They then prepared and posted questions to the public, before the session, aimed at promoting clarifications and inviting additional input on the topics from paper authors, specialists and the public at large for discussion at the session. Participants in the conference are encouraged to submit before each session a written contribution. The authors of the papers can also present a very short update on any further developments that followed the submission of their paper.
Summaries of the Special Reports on both preferential subjects are published in this issue of PAC World.
The Protection and Automation session was attended by 350 experts that participated in active discussions of the papers and the reports.
A major part of the CIGRE Session is the vendors exhibition that brings all leading manufacturers of electric power systems transmission technology and gives the attendants of the conference to experience directly the latest products and discuss their applications.
An important event at the exhibition was the second IEC 61850 interoperability demonstration. More than 15 companies participated with their IEDs, merging units, testing and software tools showing the benefits of this new technology. Exchange of GOOSE messages between all participating vendors devices supporting the IEC 61850 Station Bus and displayed in real-time in a large display was an excellent demonstration of the achieved interoperability.
The UCA International Users Group annual meeting was also held in parallel to the CIGRÉ sessions on August 30, 2006. The meeting included a series of informative presentations and was open to the public. A general introduction to the users group was followed by an IEC 61850 seminar, as well as presentations of current and planned applications in projects and the benefits derived by utilities from using IEC 61850.
The next CIGRE Session will be in the summer of 2008 and experts are invited to submit papers on the following Preferential Subjects:
PS1: Impact of Process-Bus (IEC61850-9-2) on Protection and Substation Automation Systems
PS2: Life Cycle Management of Protection and Control Systems