Case Study: Caribbean Utilities Company thwarts island-wide outages with Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ substation modernization solution

Caribbean Utilities Company cuts substation risk with SEL in 9 months

Caribbean Utilities Company, Ltd. (CUC), the power provider for Grand Cayman, faced a critical challenge when the obsolete bay controllers in its main North Sound Substation began to fail, threatening island-wide blackouts. The original manufacturer no longer supported the equipment, and replacement quotes were prohibitively expensive. Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) proposed a custom solution to replace the substation's control system without requiring a complete and costly hardware overhaul.

SEL engineers developed and tested a new platform using SEL-2240 Axion modules and SEL-451 bay control systems in a lab simulation before performing the complex retrofit. The solution was implemented on the live substation over nine months, preventing any disruption to the power supply. The successful upgrade provided CUC with a faster, smarter, and more reliable control system that can detect disturbances in milliseconds, thwarting potential island-wide outages and securing power for the island's economy.

Caribbean Utilities Company, Ltd.