The Institute of High Voltage and High Current (IVAT) of the School of Electrical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia was established in 1991. It was initially an educational laboratoryproviding facilities for carrying out experiments, research and consultancy services in high voltage engineering beginning as early as the 1970s.

The establishment of IVAT stems out from the needs of the country for a center which carries out research and development, as well as test and calibration work in high voltage areas to ensure that  efficient technologies and power system apparatus could effectively be employed for the transmission and distribution of electrical energy to the consumers .

In 1992, the institute became the first institution in the country to be accredited in handling high voltage test and calibration works according to ISO/IEC Guide 25. In 2004. IVAT was accredited with the ISO/IEC 17025 standard in the field of high voltage electrical calibration.

In certification, IVAT has  successfully migrated to MS ISO/IEC 17025:2005 in July 2007. Later in 2013, IVAT was accredited with the on-site calibration and the scope of calibration extended up to 180 kV AC (alternating current), 180 kV DC (direct current) and 140 kV impulse. Recently in 2020, IVAT has successfully migrated to the latest MS ISO/IEC 17025:2017 standard.