Now into its 20th year, the Electrical Power and Energy Conference has its roots in Ottawa.
Historically, the first symposium leading up to this conference was the Electrical Power Symposium (EPS) held in Ottawa in 2001. The prime driver for hosting this event was a pronounced need to address the issue of deregulation in the electricity industry in Ontario at that time. This symposium was an opportunity to give voice to the various players in the de-regulation scenario and provided a forum for much debate between organizations, industry, academia and the public; especially regarding the actual implementation of deregulation.
EPS developed into an annual event in Ottawa and tackled new topics including, in 2003, the increasing debt and the widening gap between demand and supply, and, in 2004, the tough choices facing Ontario ranging from large-scale nuclear generation to demand management and distributed energy. With EPS 2005 the focus moved to more general issues such as the convergence of power and high technologies: communications, real-time applications, wide-area protection, smart metering, and automation in power systems.
Over the years, EPS grew in size and scope. In 2007, it switched from a local symposium to a national conference held in Montreal and sponsored by IEEE Canada. It was renamed the Electrical Power Conference (EPC) to reflect this evolution and has been moving around Canada ever since. In 2008, the conference was renamed to the Electrical Power and Energy Conference (EPEC) to reflect both its power and energy components. Below is a complete list of the events, their locations and their themes:
| EPEC 2020 | Edmonton, Alberta | Power Systems in Transition |
| EPEC 2019 | Montreal, Quebec: | Digital Transformation of Power and Energy Systems |
| EPEC 2018 | Toronto, Ontario | Clean Technologies for Smart Cities |
| EPEC 2017 | Saskatoon, Saskatchewan | Advanced Technologies for Renewable Energy Systems and Smart Grids |
| EPEC 2016 | Ottawa, Ontario | Smart Grid and Beyond: Future of the Integrated Power System |
| EPEC 2015 | London, Ontario | Smarter Resilient Power Systems |
| EPEC 2014 | Calgary, Alberta | Partnership between Industrial Users and Power Providers |
| EPEC 2013 | Halifax, Nova Scotia | Innovative Leadership for Renewable Energy |
| EPEC 2012 | London, Ontario | Resilient Green Energy Systems for a Sustainable Society |
| EPEC 2011 | Winnipeg, Manitoba | Advanced Technologies for Emerging Power Systems |
| EPEC 2010 | Halifax, Nova Scotia | Sustainable Energy for an Intelligent Grid |
| EPEC 2009 | Montreal, Quebec | Sustainable/Renewable Energy Systems and Technologies |
| EPEC 2008 | Vancouver, British Columbia | Energy Innovation |
| EPC 2007 | Montreal, Quebec | Renewable and Alternative Energy Resources |
| EPS 2006 | Ottawa, Ontario | From Tesla’s AC Power System to Distributed Generation and Smart Grids |
| EPS 2005 | Ottawa, Ontario | Convergence of Power and High Technologies |
| EPS 2004 | Ottawa, Ontario | Ontario’s Tough Electricity Choices |
| EPS 2003 | Ottawa, Ontario | Supply and Demand Challenges |
| EPS 2002 | Ottawa, Ontario | Tricks and Treats in Evolving Electricity Markets |
| EPS 2001 | Ottawa, Ontario | Electricity Deregulation in Ontario |