PSR User Meeting 2026 · Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil · May 24 – 29, 2026.
The 2026 program is built around real challenges faced by system operators, planning agencies, regulators, market participants, utilities, consultants, universities and development institutions — connecting those problems to methodologies, models and computational solutions that can support decisions in increasingly complex environments. With participants from multiple regions and institutional backgrounds, the meeting combines formal sessions with informal exchanges to strengthen collaboration across the energy community, around two central themes:
Energy transition, renewable integration, security of supply, resilience, transmission modernization, hydrothermal operation, integrated planning, decarbonization, climate change and geopolitical uncertainty. The sessions connect these challenges directly to planning, operation and investment decisions being taken today.
The role of artificial intelligence in the energy sector — both as a new driver of demand, including data centers and large flexible loads, and as a source of opportunity through new algorithms, workflow automation, model interaction, result analysis and faster development of analytical solutions.
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The agenda below tells the strategic story of the meeting in continuous form — how the week opens with the forces reshaping the sector, develops through methodological frontiers and applied experiences, and closes with a roadmap discussion shaped by participants. It is written for readers who want to understand the arc of the event and the purpose of each session before diving into the detailed grid above.
Hotel check-in window and registration desk open for participants arriving in Foz do Iguaçu — designed to make arrival easy after long journeys.
Arrival, accreditation, badge pickup and an informal welcome reception, intended to facilitate reconnection with peers and start the event in a relaxed setting before the official program begins.
The opening plenary frames the main forces reshaping the energy sector worldwide: energy security, geopolitics, artificial intelligence, digital infrastructure, flexibility and uncertainty. The session establishes the two main axes of the event — the growing complexity of power systems and the impact of artificial intelligence on decision-making, analytical workflows and sector transformation.
This session provides a high-level map of recent technological and methodological advances around the SDDP Platform, PSR's leading SDDP Platform for integrated energy planning. The platform brings together operation, expansion, maintenance, reliability, transmission, data management, visualization and automation workflows in a unified environment for consistent decision-making across time scales, technologies and sources of uncertainty. The session introduces new capabilities related to short-term operation planning, structured time-series data, demand forecasting, operation and expansion models, advanced transmission assessment, AC optimal power flow, database evolution, visualization, knowledge management and collaborative workflows, while indicating where deeper demonstrations will appear later in the event.
The afternoon closes with transmission as a central planning challenge. The session covers network representation, grid-aware planning, visualization of transmission and expansion results, interconnection studies, Dynamic Line Rating and international transmission perspectives, connecting analytical models to practical infrastructure decisions.
An informal technical exchange with PSR specialists, organised around themes such as operation planning, expansion planning, short-term operation, transmission planning, hydro planning, portfolio analysis and new user requests — designed to surface practical challenges and collect ideas that can inform future development priorities.
The technical visit gives participants direct contact with one of the world's most important hydropower assets and provides operational context for many of the planning, flexibility and hydro-related discussions developed throughout the event.
Practical experiences from different countries and institutions: how organisations structure analytical workflows, address planning and operation challenges, evaluate investments, navigate market design questions and learn from one another through real decision processes. One of the program's main spaces for international exchange and shared perspective.
Custom computational solutions meet hydro planning and flexibility. The session opens with client-oriented applications for gas logistics, biofuels, green hydrogen and steel production, then turns to dedicated hydro-planning environments for hydroelectric and pumped-storage projects, including applied cases and a discussion of climate-change impacts on the sector.
An informal social activity at the Three Borders Landmark — where Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay meet — followed by a happy hour among participants.
A three-block session exploring how artificial intelligence can change energy modelling and decision support. It addresses AI as both a sector challenge and an opportunity: a driver of new electricity demand, a new layer of interaction with complex models and results, and a way to accelerate algorithms, software development, workflow automation and analytical exploration.
How analytical methods, consulting products and computational tools support decisions across system operation and integrated planning. The session covers the value created by system operators, applications to national operators, integrated generation–transmission planning, and the importance of explicitly representing renewable uncertainty in operation planning.
Data centers and other large flexible loads are treated as emerging planning challenges. The session examines technical and regulatory issues, connection screening, hosting capacity, demand supply risk, elastic and flexible demand representation, and the integration of large-demand decisions into expansion and operation planning.
A second opportunity for direct technical discussion with PSR specialists — modelling questions, methodological issues, support needs, customisation ideas and future development priorities in a more focused and informal format.
A closer look at selected user-experience and data-workflow capabilities: structured time-series inputs, dashboards and result exploration, analytical visualization workflows and collaborative versioning for case and data management.
Applied perspectives from different systems and planning contexts: model implementation for a transmission system operator, international planning practice, regional integration, climate-aware expansion and operation planning, and electric vehicles and mobility modelling.
A landmark group visit to the Iguazu Falls, designed to strengthen the community dimension of the meeting and create space for technical and strategic conversations outside the formal agenda.
The week's final informal exchange with PSR specialists — a last opportunity to discuss modelling questions, methodologies, support and future priorities before the closing day.
The closing session combines PSR's development roadmap with a structured discussion of community priorities — execution management, cloud-based workflows, training and education initiatives, value-based maintenance planning, stochastic reactive planning, and integrated expansion-maintenance-operation planning — followed by participant feedback, certificates and final remarks.
