15-18 April 2024, Johannesburg
The 3rd PAC World Africa Conference was held in Johannesburg, South Africa. For the first time the conference venue was ESKOM’s Academy of learning which in the past was the home of the South African protection conference.
The conference was preceded on Monday by a half day tutorial on “Evolution of IEC 61850” presented by Dr. Alexander Apostolov, USA.
The opening of the conference was followed by the Keynote address on “Future protection schemes: From Protection to Prediction” presented by Prince Moyo, ESKOM, South Africa – Transmission Asset Management.
The two-and-a-half days conference program included 34 papers presented in single sessions. As is a tradition for all PAC World conferences – there were no parallel sessions. The authors of the papers were from several countries from all over the world.
The papers were presented in the paper sessions including 20 min presentations followed by a discussion of all the papers at the end of each session.
The papers accepted for presentation at the conference covered a wide range of topics related to the developments of electric power systems protection and control technologies, the evolution in the implementation of IEC 61850 in digital substations, distribution automation and system integrity protection schemes. A number of papers were focused on various aspects of testing of protection and control devices and systems, while others talked about cyber security,
The traditional “Ask the experts” panel was the last session in the conference program. The lively interactive discussion was a great opportunity for the participants to address a wide range of topics and answer questions submitted in advance or raised during the session.
During the breaks the participants visited the exhibition and discussed with the vendors’ representatives the latest advanced technology and its applications.
As already has become a tradition, the “PAC Demo Hour +” was held at the end of the conference program on Tuesday, providing an additional demo session when participating exhibitors had an extended interaction with participants in a relaxed atmosphere.
The Conference Dinner was held at the Sky Lounge at the Grand Central Airport, where we had a great time and a great meal. This dinner was also when all the photo contest awards were announced, including the popular vote.
