Since 2004, PSR has been hosting user meetings to connect professionals in the energy sector and share technological advancements in our analytical tools. Our first event, held in September 2004 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, brought together about 40 participants from various parts of Latin America, mainly interested in exploring and discussing the functionalities of SDDP and OPTGEN. The success of this edition set a standard for future interactions between developers, users, and the PSR support team.
In June 2008, we returned to Rio de Janeiro for our second User Meeting, expanding participation to over 50 professionals. This event, in addition to focusing on the SDDP and OPTGEN tools, also introduced new products such as NCP, NETPLAN, Coral, ePSR, and PSR Cloud. The inclusion of user presentations on practical applications of our tools further enhanced the level of interaction and knowledge exchange.
Four years later, in September 2012, we took our User Meeting to Panama City. With approximately 100 participants from across Latin America, this event solidified the importance of these meetings as a valuable space for learning and networking among PSR tool users.
After a 12-year hiatus, we resumed this important meeting in March 2024, back in Panama City, with the name ELAU (Latin American User Meeting). The 2024 edition featured an in-depth discussion on the challenges of planning the operation and expansion of power systems with high penetration of renewable energy. Participants also explored PSR's recent tools, applications, and developments, as well as analyses and result visualizations. Other topics included the representation and modeling of renewable sources in PSR models, real case studies, storage technologies, and the energy transition. Discussions covered flexibility needs and their modeling in the energy transition, as well as considerations on hydrology, flows, and climate variables. Additionally, the event highlighted integrated generation and transmission planning, the challenges and strategies involved, and the next steps for the future development of PSR models. With 95 registrants from 15 different countries and the presence of over 40 companies, the success of this event was so significant that we decided not to wait another decade for the next edition.
And we didn't. Just over a year later, in May 2025, we brought the meeting home to Brazil, hosting it in the vibrant coastal town of Búzios. This edition marked a pivotal moment in our journey. Building on the success of ELAU, the event was rebranded as the PSR User Meeting, confirming its new annual frequency and expanding its reach to a worldwide audience. With participants from 20 countries across four continents, the Búzios meeting became a truly global forum for dialogue on energy analytics. The agenda addressed the next frontier of challenges, focusing on navigating the energy transition with new carriers like hydrogen, incorporating the impacts of climate change into planning through probabilistic modeling, and the critical role of transmission infrastructure in a decarbonized world. The deep technical collaboration in Búzios set a new standard for our future annual gatherings.
