34th Electrical Insulation Conference report

The 34th Electrical Insulation Conference was held June 19 to 22, 2016, at the Hotel Bonaventure in Montreal, Canada. Even in tough economic times, Montreal is still popular; we were able to hold the line on attendance, with 259 participants from different countries covering all major continents. A total of 311 abstracts were submitted, resulting in a final program of 151 papers, 49 of which were presented in two poster sessions. The conference opened on Sunday with two fullday and one half-day short courses offered by technical experts. These courses were On-Site and Laboratory Partial Discharge by Tom Prevost and William Hu, Effect of Inverter Fed Drives on Rotating Machine Electrical Insulation by Greg Stone, and Forensic Analysis of Insulation and System Failures by Howard Penrose. The first poster session, with 30 posters on display, was held on Sunday evening as part of the welcoming reception. The oral sessions opened on Monday morning. Bernard Noirhomme, the Conference Chair, welcomed the attendees and then yielded the floor to Stephane Lemieux, Scientific Director of the Research Institute of Hydro-Quebec, who talked about the importance of research on electrical insulation for Hydro-Quebec.