Central Power Research Institute (CPRI) is an autonomous society under Ministry of Power, Government of India. Set up in 1960 by the Government of India,  functions as a centre for applied research in electrical power engineering assisting the  electrical industry in product development, Consultancy and quality assurance. CPRI also serves as an independent authority for testing and certification of power equipment as per National and International standards. CPRI's governing body includes eminent professionals from Industries, Utilities, prestigious Academic and Research Institutions and the Government. 

The officials of CPRI are members of various standardisation committees and corporate members of various bodies/organisation.  CPRI has established state of the art protocol testing laboratory which is unique in its kind in this part of the world and is being catering to its customers to develop, test and certify communication protocol related to Substation Automation and Metering as per National and International standards.

The protocol laboratory of CPRI is equipped with the facility of conformance testing of IEC 61850 compatible devices.  This test facility is accredited by Utility Communication Architecture International Users Group (UCA IUG) as Level - A  which means CPRI is an independent third party laboratory for testing of server devices for IEC 61850 compliance. CPRI is the first and only Institute in this part of the world to get this accreditation status for IEC 61850 conformance testing.