Case Study: ENWIN Powerlines improves substation reliability and safety with SEL relays

Relays Provide Critical Automation and Communications Features for Windsor Substation Upgrade and Auto Plant Transformer Stations

ENWIN Powerlines, the electric power distributor for Windsor, Ontario, needed to modernize 24 aging substations and phase out an obsolete 4 kV system. The utility was dealing with 40- to 50-year-old electromechanical relays that were unreliable, not SCADA-capable, costly to maintain, and difficult to support due to scarce spare parts, so it turned to Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories (SEL) for digital protection and automation equipment.

SEL supplied 67 SEL-551 Overcurrent/Reclosing Relays, along with SEL communications and control capabilities, to improve protection, monitoring, and remote operation across substations and transformer stations. The upgrade reduced maintenance and repair needs, improved safety, and sped up fault response and restoration; ENWIN also used the accurate metering to transfer load more precisely, shut down three substations earlier than planned, and avoid many truck rolls through remote holdoff and switching operations.

ENWIN Powerlines

Kevin Damphouse

SCADA Manager