SEL Innovations and Solutions

Innovation has been part of our story since day one, when SEL founder Dr. Edmund O. Schweitzer, III, invented the first microprocessor-based digital protective relay. Today, we’re still redefining what’s possible for the protection, automation, and control of electric power systems. Here's a look at some of the ways SEL is inventing the future.Download the brochure 

Traveling-Wave and Time-Domain Technologies

  • Protection that isn't dependent on sources; great for areas with high inverter-based resource integration.
  • Detects and issues trip commands in 1–2 ms, 5–10 times faster than traditional protection.
  • The most accurate fault locator available; pinpoints faults to within one tower span.

SEL Arc Sense Technology for Wildfire Mitigation

  • Detects and isolates high-impedance downed conductors to reduce fire risk while keeping unaffected line sections energized.
  • Alerts operators of a fallen conductor or instructs circuit breakers or recloser controls to isolate the affected circuit.
  • Available in many devices already deployed in your distribution systems.

SEL ICON Virtual Synchronous Networking

  • Packet transport with deterministic time-division multiplexing (TDM) and better than 1 ms latency.
  • Enables TDM-based line current differential protection within IP core networks.
  • Allows packet-based and TDM-based systems to work together, greatly reducing communications migration or upgrade costs.

Software-Defined Networking (SDN)

  • The only engineered network designed for reliable control system operations.
  • Ensures traffic only flows between designated points and blocks all other traffic, eliminating the need for complex firewall rules.
  • Redirects network traffic to alternate paths in under 100 μs when the network breaks.

Time-Domain Power Monitoring With Energy Packet Technology

  • Streams continuous waveform data to SEL Synchrowave software, which captures, analyzes, and stores every disturbance.
  • Accurately measures energy transfer every millisecond, regardless of the waveshape, frequency, or phase.
  • Calculates energy in a simple method that is traceable to the fundamentals of physics and mathematics.

SEL Arc-Flash Solutions

  • Life-saving arc-flash protection operates in milliseconds to reduce arc fault energy.
  • Combines light sensing with fast overcurrent protection to provide high-speed detection without operating for external faults.
  • Works with low- and medium-voltage switchgear and easily coordinates with other devices in industrial- and commercial-scale facilities.

SEL powerMAX Power Management and Microgrid Control Solutions

  • Maximizes uptime by controlling generation, shedding loads, and automatically synchronizing microgrids.
  • Scalable from oil refineries to solar and wind farms to managing an entire country's power system.
  • Manages energy costs and determines the optimal generation dispatch based on operational conditions.

SEL Time-Domain Link (TiDL) Technology

  • The simplest, most reliable, and lowest-cost digital secondary system available.
  • Plug-and-operate configuration.
  • Requires no network switches or clocks.

SEL-487E Centralized Protection and Control

  • Simplifies commissioning, testing, firmware management, and cybersecurity while reducing the total cost of ownership.
  • Built on a proven relay platform.
  • Offers flexible deployment solutions, including traditional I/O connections, SEL TiDL, or IEC 61850.

SEL-5702 Synchrowave Operations Software

  • Wide-Area Situational Awareness (WASA) software that aggregates time-series data, including synchrophasor data, relay event reports, and high-resolution waveform streams.
  • Equips transmission control centers with tools to transform time-synchronized data into detailed system insights that support decision making.
  • Simple to use and customizable to maximize WASA.

High-Density Coordination Solutions for Distribution Protection and Reclosing

  • Simplify recloser deployment in any feeder topology, overcoming the limitations of traditional time-overcurrent coordination.
  • Coordinate the actions of any number of SEL-651R Advanced Recloser Controls, allowing all of them to operate quickly, securely, and dependably.
  • Implement with your existing communications infrastructure—or even without communications.

SEL Grid Configurator Software

  • Provides context-oriented configuration and commissioning tools for SEL power system devices.
  • Facilitates device testing and commissioning through customized HMI dashboards.
  • Simplifies settings evaluation with intuitive comparison interfaces.

Blueframe Data Management and Automation (DMA)

  • Automatically collects, stores, and manages device-specific information to simplify system-wide device management and compliance.
  • Automates the collection of oscillography, Sequence of Events data, device settings, property information, and other data.
  • Rotates passwords and streamlines device audits with summary reports that identify device changes.

SEL-RPM Redundant Power Module

  • A reliable and simple multisource module to power your protection, monitoring, and control equipment.
  • Combines as many as three ac sources and one dc source for dependable control power during normal operations and power disturbances.
  • Keeps protection, automation, and SCADA running and increases device availability, even during station battery servicing and station power interruptions.

acSELerator Architect SEL-5032 Software

  • Provides powerful and simple IEC 61850 configuration.
  • Efficiently supports a top-down engineering workflow in the role of the IED Configuration Tool (ICT).
  • Innovative interoperability features include the ability to create a custom IED data model and the ability to use multiple IEC 61850 editions in the same system.

Blueframe FLISR (Fault Location, Isolation, and Service Restoration)

  • Enables you to create system configurations in minutes with no complex modeling required.
  • Manages protection and switching devices at the grid edge, increasing the speed of service restoration.
  • Manufacturer-agnostic recloser support through DNP3.