by Peter Bishop, Transpower NZ Ltd, New Zealand
News from CIGRE Study Committee B5 Protection and Automation
SC B5 (particularly with the work of the local Japan National Committee organizing team) held a successful CIGRE Study Committee B5 Osaka Colloquium from 30th June to 6th July 2025. There were 221 delegates from Japan and 27 other countries. Interactive activities included:
- 8 working group meetings
- Paper poster sessions with 48 posters shared by authors
- A keynote presentation on the evolution of grid protection relays and monitoring and control systems in Japan
- Tutorial on ‘Protection and automation considerations during power system disturbances’
- Group Discussion Meetings with 80 presented special reporter question response contributions and significant spontaneous discussion for each of the three preferential subjects
PS1: IEC 61850 based Interoperability of IEDs of different manufacturers and technologies integrated in one PACS
PS2: PACS Life Cycle Performance and Longevity
PS3: Sharing of best practices on revised principles enabled by modern protection IEDs
- SC B5 2025 Annual Meeting
- Technical Visit to the Osaka International Expo Electric Power Pavillion – Eggs of Possibilities
During the SC B5 2025 Annual Meeting three preferential subjects and three new working groups were voted in and as follows:
- 2027 Preferential Subjects
- Experience and challenges regarding SIPS and WAMPACS
- New requirements of network protection and control for renewable energy integration
- Artificial Intelligence in PACS
- New Working Groups
- Guidelines for commissioning and testing of fully digital PACS
- Monitoring and Diagnostic of PACS in Digital Substation
- Best practices and challenges related on islanding protection
In addition, during the meeting, the newly published SC B5 strategic plan 2024 -2033 was introduced and progress on the Key Performance Indicators was summarised.
The strategic plan of CIGRE Study Committee B5 sets out the strategic technical directions to be followed by the B5 Committee over the period 2024–2033 in order to address the main objectives set by CIGRE Technical Committee.
The CIGRE SC B5 public website ( https://b5.cigre.org/ ) has been amended to include updated information such as the new SC B5 strategic plan and latest active B5 working groups.
After a recent review and acceptance of papers, the CIGRE symposium in Montréal Canada from 29 September to 3 October 2025 (https://cigre.ca/2025/en/) will include 37 B5 papers across five SC B5 paper presentation sessions. SC B5 session themes are:-
- Fault Location, auto-reclosing, controlled switching, wide-area measurements
- Experience with fully digital PACS
- Commissioning, Testing, Setting and Configuration
- Line Protection
- Renewable Energy and Apparatus Protection
The call for paper abstracts for the 2026 Paris session recently closed. The 2026 Paris Session will take place from 23 to 28 August 2026. Arrangements are being made for the SC B5 sessions including synopsis and paper reviews. The preferential subjects are:
PS1: Knowledge management in the field of protection, automation, control, metering and monitoring
PS2: Protection and control in networks with unconventional sources
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.
