We have just concluded the IEEE PES Grand Transmission & Distribution Conference and Exposition in Bangkok, Thailand. The event took place at the BITEC Convention Center from March 20 to 23. PES organizes the Transmission & Distribution Conference and Exposition in the U.S. every two years; the next one will take place in Chicago in 2020.

This was the first time PES has organized the flagship T&D Conference outside the United States. Our Thai volunteers accepted this challenge with a great deal of enthusiasm and energy. They received ample support from the Electricity Generation Authority of Thailand and the two major electric utilities in the country – the Provincial Electricity Authority and the Metropolitan Electricity Authority. The end result was a grand success. With this broad support, they were able to attract executives, engineers and managers from electric utilities in the Asia-Pacific region to attend and exchange ideas.

Attendees enjoyed a wide array of hardware on display at this conference. They also had the opportunity to view many exciting new technologies which will be made available for deployment in the near future. The large gathering of vendors, manufacturers and academic experts from around the world provided a rich venue to discuss best practices, opportunities and challenges facing the electric power industry today.

The GT&D Conference attracted more than 7200 attendees who came from 38 countries. The top five countries were Thailand, China, Singapore, South Korea and Japan. The conference also had many high-profile keynote speakers, industry panels, supersessions and academic and industry papers. The plenary and paper sessions were well-attended. In addition to a large number of attendees, there were 230 companies from 24 countries which demonstrated their hardware on the show floor. The top five vendor countries were Thailand, China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan. Several vendors, who attended a PES Transmission and Distribution Conference for the first time, were pleased with the arrangements on the show floor, the traffic and the levels of high-level attendees.

To quote the senior manager of business development (ASEAN-II) with Larsen & Toubro India Ltd., “It was a pleasure meeting you at the IEEE- PES GTD Expo in Bangkok last month, which was a very well-organized event. Thank you, once again, for making us part of such a great event. We look forward to participating in future events.”

PES has announced it is working on the next GT&D Conference in Asia, which will take place in 2021. We will announce the hosting country soon. We are pleased with the outcome of the 2019 event and look forward to your attendance at the GT&D Conference in 2021.