by Peter Bishop, Transpower NZ Ltd, New Zealand
News from CIGRE Study Committee B5 Protection and Automation
SC B5 joined 11 other study committees and participated in the CIGRE international symposium in Montréal (Canada) from 29 September to 3 October 2025. A joint A3/B5 workshop “Digitalization of Switchgear: Implementation experience and integration with the protection world” took place and 32 B5 papers were presented across five SC B5 paper presentation sessions. SC B5 session themes were:
- Fault Location, auto-reclosing, controlled switching, wide-area measurements
- Experience with fully digital PACS
- Renewable Energy and Apparatus Protection
- Line Protection
- Commissioning, Testing, Setting and Configuration
The best B5 paper of the Montreal Symposium was “Essentials of Renewable Energy Protection and Monitoring” by Daniel Ransom (US).
The 2026 CIGRE Paris Session will take place from 23 to 28 August 2026. SC B5 received around 160 synopses. These synopses have now been reviewed and authors notified of the results. The authors of the accepted synopsis are invited to submit the full paper via their National Committees.
Additional B5 review panel members are sought to review B5 Paris session papers from the end of January 2026. Please contact SC B5 Secretary, Peter Bishop, as soon as possible if interested. The two preferential subjects of B5 are the following:
- PS1: Knowledge management in the field of protection, automation, control, metering and monitoring
- 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
- 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
Working Group B5.89 “Protection Redundancy and Backup for Modern Power Systems” has now been approved by the CIGRE Technical Council Chair and working group member nominations are being sought through national committees.
The dates and venue for the 2027 SC B5 Colloquium have been confirmed. The SC B5 Colloquium will be incorporated into the 2027 CIGRE Canadian Conference taking place in Toronto (Canada) from Monday 20 September to Thursday 23 September 2027.
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.
