Welcome and Opening Remarks

It is an honour to have been asked by the IET to help to organise this inauguaral Power Generation control event, and one which is hoped will become successful enough to become a biennial event in the Control and Automation Network events calendar. The motivation for this event is the identification of a gap or absence of forums where there can be a coming together of power generation control specialists from the utilities, consultancies and academia to discuss issues and share knowledge in what is a vital plant area on generating plants. Giving the numerous challenges facing the industry in the immediate future, it is appreciated that the speakers have given up time to contribute/participate in this event. There are many topics and issues that could have been turned into presentations for the day, but the themes that drove the selection of the current presentations are: . What is the future direction of power plant control. . Justifying and facing up to the challenges of control refurbishment, and . Increasing demand for more remote operation/automation.