The insulator professional’s guide to CIGRE Paris 2026, with trends and must-see talks

Are you at CIGRE Paris Session, 23-28 August? If you work in an area related to electrical insulators for the grid, we’ve filtered out your must-see sessions, papers and trends. And we look at how to get the best out of your time at CIGRE.

Why is CIGRE Paris Session 2026 important for insulator professionals?

The CIGRE Paris Session is held every two years and is a must-attend event for anyone working with the grid anywhere in the world, including (especially) insulator professionals.

This year, it’s 23-28 August. If you can, make sure you attend. If not, follow along online. Here’s why:

1. See your standards get developed

CIGRE Paris is where the study committee sessions happen live. These are the working groups that draft the Technical Brochures and feed into IEC standards. They present and discuss their findings in person. For an insulator engineer, that means you hear about pollution performance research, ageing/diagnostics methods or new material science before it’s formalised into a published standard.

2. Get tech papers you can’t get anywhere else

For engineers making specification decisions, you get to see 1,000s of papers presented, with real operational data from global utilities. This includes failure investigations, field performance under specific climates, new testing methodologies. This is applied, evidence-based content, not vendor marketing.

3. Make connections across the value chain

You get to be in a room with utilities, manufacturers, testing labs and consulting engineers. For someone specifying or selling insulators, that’s rare direct access to the people actually operating grids, and you’re the one who can help with with issues like contamination, ice loading and ageing composite housings in the field.

4. Compare insulator products side by side

The trade exhibition alongside the conference lets engineers see what manufacturers are actually bringing to market. It’s a rare chance for you to compare technology approaches side by side, and benchmark against competitors. This is useful for procurement and R&D teams alike.

5. Give your career a nudge

CIGRE is a great chance to boost your career and be seen in the industry. Present a paper, sit in on a working group, or even just consistently show up to events. This kind of activity shows you’re engaged with the technical community beyond your day-to-day work.

6. Peek into the future

CIGRE Paris is often the first place emerging themes surface, years before they show up in a tender spec. For example, ice-resistant surface research, HVDC insulation challenges, new composite housing chemistry. Knowing what’s coming up might affect how you design today.

CIGRE Paris only happens every two years, and is a great chance to network, learn and represent yourself and your business (Image: CIGRE)

Topic trends to check out at CIGRE Paris 2026

Overall trends to expect

On a quick top-level reading, it’s already clear to see the mega trends. These are the general trends touching the entire ecosystem:

1. Artificial intelligence
2. Sustainability 
3. Cybersecurity
4. Resilience

CIGRE trends insulator professionals should watch out for

Then we have pure electrotechnical trends: 

• HVDC 
• SF6 replacement 
• PD (partial discharge) diagnostic, which is related to insulators pollution performance
• System black start restoration and large disturbances, read as ‘lessons learned from the 2025 Spain-Portugal blackout‘

For example, HVDC, which has different pollution performance behaviour needing longer creepage distance. LAPP and PPC Insulator teams often see these new requirements once the tender is sent out, but unfortunately by then it’s already too late. 

It’s worth being in the know on this.

There are other trends as well like high-temperature, low sag, HTLS-conductors and climatic correction factors. You’ll need to learn about those before the requirements appear on the customer’s technical specification, or even as standard.

CIGRE Paris 2026 sessions insulator engineers should attend

As a delegate, you can download 1630 papers on eCIGRE with your ticket. There are 130 that reference insulators.

While there’s no study committee specifically for insulators, there are some insulator-related topics you can attend:

• B2 Overhead Lines: talks on 24, 25 and 26 August
• B3 Substations and Electrical Installations: talks on 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 August
  “The Paris Session papers are not like those of a typical conference. They are a used as a tool that allows authors to both present and contribute to the latest thought leadership” The CIGRE Paris Session submissions process

Composite insulators are having one tutorial session under:

• D1 Materials and Emerging Technologies: 25 August, ‘Latest developments of test methods for polymeric insulating materials under high-voltage outdoor conditions’

This goes to show how long the R&D-cycle length is in the energy business. Composite high-voltage insulators were introduced in the 1970s, yet they’re still referred to as an emerging technology.

Ceramic insulators are over 100 years old, well-known and when correctly designed, there are no problems and therefore there are no papers on these specifically. Most articles are written about challenges and problem solving. 

Most papers and talks won’t reference ceramic insulator design specifically. But most of these general trends will affect ceramic insulator design as well, even if they’re directly mentioned on the papers. 

Women in Energy Forum at CIGRE Paris 2026

The Women in Energy (WiE) Forum will take place on Thursday 27, 11:00-14:00, aiming to encourage women to select this professional path. It’s a highly male-dominated industry, but the percentage of women entering this industry is increasing slowly. We’d love more female contributors to the Insulator Education Initiative. Please get in touch

See you there?

I’ll be at CIGRE, exhibiting with PPC Insulators at booth C158. Make sure you drop in and say hello. You can find me on LinkedIn here.

And this is the full CIGRE Paris Session 2026 programme.