Solutions

Distribution

We ensure the reliability, resiliency, and safety of the electric distribution grid.

SEL provides solutions and services that protect, control, and optimize electric power distribution systems—helping our customers deliver safe, reliable power to people around the globe.

Our Approach

We simplify the protection, optimization, and restoration of distribution systems.

Learn why we're different

Our Solutions

Systems and products that protect, control, automate, and optimize electric power distribution.

See how we solve the problem

Our Services

Achieve your operating goals with custom-engineered solutions and services supported by a global network of application engineers.

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Our Support

We strive to be not just a vendor, but a partner you can rely on.

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Our Approach

Our mission is not merely to sell products and systems, but to ensure that everyone has access to safe, reliable electric power. Our customers all share this goal—yet there are many different ways to achieve it. Distribution systems need to be responsive to future demands, and above all, reliable. This is why we innovate toward simplicity.

Reliability Is What Matters Most

Our approach to distribution solutions focuses on developing and delivering technologies that support and simplify the continuous cycle of protecting, restoring, and optimizing the power grid.

SEL High-Density Coordination (HDC) makes it easier to deploy more recloser controls to improve reliability—without introducing additional complexity.

We believe automation should make systems simpler, not more complex, so we created a fault location, isolation, and service restoration (FLISR) solution that can be deployed by simply defining your feeder topology and doesn't require complex modeling. Secure communications and intelligent controls and sensors make it easier to optimize power system efficiency.

These technologies and innovations are geared to help you minimize outages, restore power faster, and make better use of time and money when upgrading power systems—all to improve reliability.

From our knowledge base:

Our Solutions

From protection fundamentals to advanced automation, SEL solutions improve the safety, reliability, and efficiency of every part of the distribution grid.

Our innovative solutions are simple to deploy and flexible enough to encompass all feeder topologies. They integrate with existing equipment and work seamlessly together. And they can be scaled up after deployment, allowing you to add devices and functionality all at once, or piece by piece as needs evolve and budgets allow.

Improving Feeder Protection

Segmenting feeders by adding recloser controls is a highly effective way to reduce the number of customers exposed to permanent electrical outages.

However, in traditional time-overcurrent protection, there is a limit to how many reclosers can be deployed on a feeder before coordination margins become too tight.

SEL’s High-Density Coordination (HDC) solution solves that problem with an innovative, simplified protection scheme enabled by the SEL-651R Advanced Recloser Control .

How HDC Simplifies Protection

An HDC logic template in the SEL-651R coordinates the actions of any number of SEL-651R controls, allowing all of them to operate safely within the standard time-overcurrent protection curve. This lets you enable the full functionality of all your recloser controls and deploy as many as you need on any given feeder.

Flexible deployment options:

Apply HDC schemes in any feeder topology.
Implement with your existing communications infrastructure—or even without communications.
Deploy at scale or build out over time—simplified device deployment lets you add reclosers as needed.

Coordination groups keep time-overcurrent coordination simple and can be applied in any feeder topology.

The HDC scheme’s group switching and stepped reclosing allow you to deploy high-density coordination without an extended protection communications network. The scheme can easily be converted to take advantage of peer-to-peer communications if infrastructure is upgraded in the future.HDC schemes also work in tandem with FLISR to provide a complete, simplified feeder protection and system restoration solution.

Advanced HDC With High-Speed Communications

Deploy an advanced HDC scheme with protection-speed communications (IEC 61850 GOOSE protocol over Ethernet fiber) to reduce fault-clearing time, reduce flicker, improve power quality, and extend equipment life.

Faults are cleared in ten cycles or less, regardless of fault current magnitude or location. HDC group switching and stepped reclosing provide a fallback, resolving any potential miscoordinations if communications are lost. And the HDC scheme remains flexible and can easily accommodate additional reclosers and changes in feeder topology.

From our knowledge base

Fault Location, Isolation, and Service Restoration

Minimize customer outages by automatically isolating permanent faults and rerouting power around the affected sections.

Feeder Protection

Lay the foundation for reliable feeder protection with intelligent SEL relays in the substation.

Recloser Control

Ensure maximum reliability for your customers by clearing temporary faults and isolating outages.

Secure OT Networking

OT SDN is a true deny-by-default solution with better cybersecurity and situational awareness than traditional networking technologies.

Substation Automation

Harness the data captured by substation IEDs to increase the security and reliability of the distribution grid.

Communications

Enable secure remote access to IEDs, improved fault location, and better protection speed.

Power Quality

Improve your system’s power factor and respond to demand in real time.

Our Services

SEL provides turnkey solutions and services that help you improve reliability, modernize protection systems, and meet complex challenges such as integrating distributed generation.

No matter how difficult the problem may be, we can engineer and implement a system that helps you simplify and solve it. And SEL solutions don’t end at commissioning; our worldwide network of application engineers provides technical support for the entire life of your SEL products and systems.

Distribution Automation

SEL Engineering Services provides turnkey distribution automation control solutions.

Our engineers will install and configure the SEL DMS Suite, including scalable FLISR systems and data management and automation (DMA) solutions.

In addition to DMS solutions, SEL Engineering Services teams also:

Install reclosers and set up High Density Coordination schemes that improve feeder protection.
Design and implement complete substation automation solutions.
Mitigate public safety hazards with solutions for high-impedance fault (HIF) and falling-conductor detection.

SEL Engineering Services

We deliver turnkey solutions, engineered specifically for your operational goals and your system.

Cybersecurity Services

SEL cybersecurity and networking experts strengthen your system’s defenses and provide turnkey networking solutions.

System Modeling and Factory Acceptance Testing

We use the industry’s most extensive library of validated models to design, test, and validate solutions.

Distribution Automation Control

Custom-engineered, turnkey distribution automation and control solutions.

Our Support

We believe you should never have to worry about whether your protection and control systems will be working when you need them most. That’s why every device we manufacture comes with a 10-year warranty and free technical support.

We've collaborated closely with our customers since the company was founded nearly 40 years ago—a major reason why we’re North America’s most trusted provider of protective relays and ranked #1 by international utilities in price, service, and support.

The Industry’s Best Warranty

SEL devices are designed for a working life of at least 20 years, and every SEL-manufactured device comes with a ten-year warranty—the best in the electric power industry. If it fails under warranty, repair and replacement are free.

We always do all that we can to repair any returned product, whether it meets our warranty or not.

Rugged and Reliable – Guaranteed

SEL products are designed and manufactured for the world’s most challenging environments, exceeding all industry standards for temperature, shock, and electric stress. An optional conformal coating for circuit boards adds an extra level of protection against contaminants in extreme environments.

Our products have a mean time between returns for repair (MTBR) of more than 250 years, based on observed field performance. This means that if you have 250 SEL products installed in your systems, you can expect to have less than one unscheduled removal from service per year for any reason, whether it’s a defect or an external factor such as overvoltage, overcurrent, wildlife damage, or environmental exposure.