The Energy Conversion Congress and Exposition was first held in 2009. It was and is a collaborative effort between two societies within the IEEE: The Power Electronics Society (PELS) and the Industrial Power Conversion Systems Department (IPCSD) of the Industry Application Society (IAS).

The motivation for creating yet another conference came from the feeling that the technology and innovations activities in energy conversion − while having burgeoned and blossomed as they were served faithfully by the two societies − has evolved to be too cumbersome to adequately serve the energy conversion community within the confines of the existing conferences of the two societies. This is partly due to the many disparate conferences which cover the area but are of a more regional nature.

The leadership of the two societies committed to the idea of establishing a singular conference, global in scope and format which will pursue an ambitious and forward thinking agenda serving the needs of the industry and academia in the broad field of energy conversion and all its facets. ECCE was the result of this idea, its mission is to meet the needs of a community which is diverse in nature and yet is unified in its pursuit of technology within the loosely defined market segment of energy conversion.

The initial driving philosophy was manifold:

To consolidate the academic and applied activities within the electrical energy conversion market from theory to practice.
To provide a centralized forum for engineers, designers, innovators, and policy makers to meet in one location every year in order to discourse, dispute, and discover old and new ideas, build kinship and camaraderie and to revel in the company of like minded individuals
To drive and spark creative thinking and action within the realm of electrical energy conversion.
To enable the growth of the next generation of innovators, researchers and practitioners
To foster knowledge exchange between industry, research entities, academia with the goal of enhancing the state of the art in energy conversion
Over the past 6 years, this vision has been brought to bear successfully by teams of dedicated volunteers and participants. ECCE has grown in attendance from 889 in 2009 to 1312 in 2013. ECCE has become the premier global conference covering topics in energy conversion from electric machines, power electronics, drives, devices and applications existing and emergent. As we celebrate the 6th year of ECCE in Pittsburgh, PA we invite you to come join the growing, global family of energy conversion enthusiasts.