by Peter Bishop, Transpower NZ Ltd, New Zealand
News from CIGRE Study Committee B5 Protection and Automation
Preparations are now underway for the 2026 Paris Session, which will take place 23 to 28 August. Registrations to attend the session are open at Registration | Session CIGRE. The B5 Study Committee (SC) meeting will be held during that week. The two SC B5 preferential subjects of B5 are the following:
- PS1: Knowledge management in the field of protection, automation, control, metering and monitoring – Special Reporters: Mladen KEZUNOVIC (US), Caitlin SHORT (US)
- Knowledge and skills and their preservation
- Education, training and life-long learning of students, young professionals, academics and manufacturer and utility personnel
- Platforms, methodology, tools and support for documentation and educational delivery
- PS2: Protection and control in networks with unconventional sources – Special Reporter: John WRIGHT (UK)
- Best practices and regulatory and performance requirements for protection and control in networks dominated by unconventional sources, including wind and solar generation, battery storage, HVDC links and other converter-based devices
- Lessons learned and field experience with protection and control in networks dominated by unconventional sources, including fault-ride through and transient behaviour
- New developments in protection and fault response control of unconventional sources
The full papers have now been reviewed, and authors have notified of the outcome. 54 papers have been accepted for PS1 and 67 for PS2. This includes two Next Generation Network submissions. The papers will be presented by the authors in the B5 poster session during the afternoon of Tuesday 25th August.
The Special Report has now been completed with 18 questions. The report will be published on the CIGRE 2026 session website. It summarizes the papers and raises questions for delegate response at the General Discussion Meeting by way of prepared contributions submitted ahead of the sessions.
PS1 and PS2 Special Report contributions will be presented at General Discussion Meeting on Wednesday 26th August with a paper poster session the day before. SC B5 will also host a tutorial on the morning of Tuesday 25th August titled “The advancement of PACS architectures with focus on process bus implementation and virtualization of protection IEDs”.
A further two new working groups have been approved and member nominations are being sought via national committees:
- WG B5.92 “Anti-Islanding Protection for Distributed Generation: Challenges, Systemic Impact and Recommendations”
- JWG B2/B5.98 “Application of distributed fault location devices for overhead lines”
Progress to complete some longstanding Working Groups remains good with a couple of groups now close to completion.
The article titled “Use of Virtual Intelligent Electronic Devices for Substation Protection and Control” has been published in the January edition of the CIGRE Future Connections newsletter (CIGRE > Articles > Use of Virtual Intelligent Electronic Devices for substation protection and control) and the April edition of CIGRE Electra magazine (Use of Virtual Intelligent Electronic Devices for substation protection and control | ELECTRA) by the B5.84 working group.
SC B5 supports the upcoming 2026 International Conference on Smart Grid Synchronized
Measurements and Analytics (SGSMA) from June 1-4 in Santiago de Chile (SGSMA 2026) and the 2026 PAC World Conference from June, 22-25 in Delft Netherlands (PAC World Conference 2026).
Biography:
Peter Bishop is aPrincipal Protection and Automation Engineer at Transpower NZ Ltd, the transmission utility in New Zealand.
He is a chartered member of Engineering New Zealand and a Chartered Professional Engineer in New Zealand. Since graduating in 1989, Peter has gained experience in power system protection & automation engineering support for a transmission utility and protection manufacturer. He is now Secretary for CIGRE Study Committee B5, after being the Australia regular member. In 2022 Peter received the CIGRE Technical Council Award for Study committee B5.
