Editorial

Dear Colleagues,

Welcome to the first 2023 edition of Electra!

After the impact of the Covid pandemic, the fiscal year 2022 ended on a financial high note thanks to a very successful Paris Session, strong membership, and sponsor support. This positive news allows us to now relaunch significant initiatives such as the transformation of e-cigre that we had postponed for budgetary purposes.

January 2023 was also the first time we could hold a Joint Steering Committee /Technical Council meeting since end 2019 to review the 2018 Strategic Plan in the light of the changing Energy Transition with a horizon of 2030. The goal is to continue to ensure CIGRE’s leadership for power system and electricity expertise for our stakeholders, and for societal needs for electricity.

This meeting was hosted by the Greek National Committee in Athens who shared their country’s energy transition experience base on a topology of numerous islands that need to be connected, making efficient and reliable use of renewable energies. The changes happening in Greece, and in the southern European region, illustrate the ongoing transformations to our industry and taken into account in the strategic plan’s revision.

CIGRE’s updated Strategic Plan will be based on developing membership growth (30,000 to 35,000) by the following actions:

• Offering better and more accessible services to members and delegates,
• Capturing all relevant aspects of the Energy Transition (including digitalization, environment social and governance (ESG), distributed generation, etc.),
• Proposing the most adherent form for establishing the Study Committees structural organization in relation to the objectives of E2E and Energy Transition, in the scope of a deeper TC reform.
• Potentially reformatting the Paris Sessions,
• Identifying mechanisms for more agile and quick communication and publications responses.

A subsequent Strategic Plan review will take place in April 2023 to propose a final document to the Administrative Council this summer.

Wish you all the best for this new year,

Best regards,
Michel Augonnet