Case Study: Hydro-Québec doubles greenfield substation design productivity with Zuken E3.series

Hydro-Québec Improves Power Distribution Network Substation Design Productivity by 100%

Hydro-Québec, a major hydro‑electric power producer with hundreds of substations, faced slow, error-prone substation design workflows for greenfield and brownfield projects driven by 2D CAD and paper markups. To address repeated manual rework, inconsistent parts/cable lists, and lengthy change propagation, Hydro-Québec evaluated alternatives and selected Zuken’s E3.series as its electrical wiring and control-system design solution.

Zuken implemented E3.series (including the multi‑user E3.enterprise) to manage both logical and physical cable design, use intelligent subcircuit templates, enable concurrent multi‑engineer work, and run automated integrity scripts. The result was a doubling of design productivity and a 50% reduction in greenfield design effort, substantial brownfield time savings, automatic synchronization of changes, and a reduction in required software seats from about 80 to 41 — delivering clear, measurable efficiency gains for Hydro-Québec.

Hydro Quebec

Claude Savoie

Manager of Substation Engineering