Welcome letter from the General Chair

On behalf of IEEE Canada, the IEEE Montreal and Ottawa Sections and the organizing committee, I would like to welcome you to the IEEE Electrical Power & Energy Conference 2009, with the theme “Sustainable/Renewable Energy Systems and Technologies”.
The conference organizing committee has worked hard in the preparation of this conference. We are delighted to announce that the plenary speaker will be Dr Denis Faubert of the Institut de Recherche d’Hydro-Québec. He will speak on “The Global Context of Sustainable/Renewable Energies: Hydro-Quebec’s leadership; IREQ at the forefront of world R & D”. In addition there are four distinguished keynote speakers from industry.
There are special sessions on photovoltaic systems and electric vehicles in addition to three other panel sessions focusing on renewable power generation. This is accompanied by several interesting paper sessions and a poster session with presentations by authors from all over the world. The poster session is included just before the banquet on Thursday evening.
In the spirit of sustainability, the conference bags were manufactured by a local Non-Governmental Organization, Petites-Mains (Small Hands) which works with immigrant women to teach them French, working skills and how to integrate into Québec Society. One of the skills taught is sewing, and you will find a note and a picture of the person who actually manufactured the bag. It is made from 100% natural cotton with no chemicals and was especially designed for this conference to be used as a book-bag with the ability to convert to a more usable shopping bag afterwards.
Montreal is a great city with a charm that is hard to define. There are numerous cultural attractions and fine dining. We hope you have the time to sample some of these during your visit here, a meal or two in Old Montreal (within walking distance of the hotel) should certainly be on the list. Other favourites include many of the fine museums like the Museum of Architecture near Concordia University, the Botanical Gardens as well as the Biosphere and Biodome.
We look forward to meeting you in Montreal and hope you have a rewarding experience.

Dr. Pragasen Pillay, FIEEE, FIET
Professor In Electrical & Computer Engineering
NSERC/Hydro Québec Senior Chair
Concordia University, Montreal, Québec , Canada