Theme for 17th PPA Annual Conference & Trade Exhibition

“Proactive Partnerships Enhancing Utility Performance”

Whilst utilities in the Pacific are small and cash strapped to acquire equipment and facilities to enhance performance, the challenges to overcome are;

• Operational cost associated with fuel vs. revenue collection targets
• Power system technical issues utility by utility basics
• Exchange of skilled man power to improve relationship as well as skill transfer
• Improved networking between utilities

Objective
With this theme utilities are facilitated through PPA by way of bench mark utilities to see the level of help required.   PPA can derive and initiate help from within member Pacific utilities and allied members at manageable cost/mutual understanding.

Each Utility performance need areas are in;

• Customer services
• Revenue
• General
• Transmission& Distribution
• Fuel cost/contract management
• Renewable energy provision vs. cost
  

Common Issue

• Maintenance planning and spare parts optimization
• Asset Management
• Management
• Manpower Training Levels and Expectation

Outcome:
After the Cook Islands 2008 PPA Conference & Trade Exhibition, the 2009, 2010 conference & Exhibitions will deliberate and develop the theme further to see tangible results for raising performance in smaller utilities in the Pacific Standards.

“Applying Efficient & Affordable Technologies, Appropriate
for Pacific Island Utilities”

Invited papers are those that address the theme and the following areas or topics as agreed by the Engineers at the 3^rd PPA Engineers Workshop held in 2006;

• Distribution substation: focusing on condition monitoring and subsequent refurbishment economies
• Performance benchmarking:  especially the engineers role in overall utility improvement.  Power utilities are essentially engineering focused and improvements in its core functions of generation and distribution will result in a positive trend.
• Asset management: that addresses the principles and approach methodology to optimize return on investment.  This should also cover the business focus of operations and maintenance improvement proposals.
• Renewable energy: implementing mechanism of renewable energy integration into the established system, i.e. compatibility criteria.
• Overview of planning and design criteria:  for adoption to meet load forecasting models covering maintenance planning, equipment redundancy, etc.
• Budget issues:  that encompasses both recurrent and capital aspects of expenditure and, based on elemental components, R.O.I., overheads, etc.
• System protection:  that focuses on major assets, system reliability and stability, etc.  This approach needs to basically cover critical operational issues.
• Global warming updates:  and current status of existing renewable energy programs in the region.

 
 

As usual, the emphasis will be on the 2008 theme, “Proactive Partnerships Enhancing Utility Performance” for the CEO’s Conference and “Applying Efficient & Affordable Technologies, Appropriate for Pacific Island Utilities”

Taking into account the theme, the scope of the Business Sessions will be focused towards addressing this theme.

Interested authors should send a brief abstract (approximately 250 words) to the Executive Director, PPA Secretariat no later than June 1, 2008.   The abstract together with a brief CV or personal bio (not more than 200 words) and a passport type photo of the author should be emailed to the Secretariat before the due date.

The abstract should summarize precisely the scope of the paper proposed. 

Authors will be notified of acceptance (or otherwise) as soon as the Abstracts have been reviewed by the Secretariat.  This notification will be provided no later than June 15 2008. Final Papers must be emailed to the Secretariat by June 30 2008 in power point and also in word format (for the PPA magazine).

Detailed information on conditions and submissions of papers can be seen on Call for Papers information sheet.