EPB of Chattanooga Tennessee has awarded S&C Electric Co. a multi-million dollar, two-year contract to furnish up to 1,500 IntelliRupter PulseClosers, applied in conjunction with the IntelliTEAM SG Automatic Restoration System. The award is funded in part by a federal stimulus grant provided by the Department of Energy. The equipment will help EPB—which serves over 168,000 homes and businesses in a 600 square mile area of eastern Tennessee and northern Georgia—achieve the highest level of electric service reliability and power quality in North America.
S&C offers a wide range of products for implementing smart grid technology, including the IntelliTEAM SG Automatic Restoration System. This universal Smart Grid solution provides self-healing, scalable, distributed-intelligence-based fault isolation and reconfiguration, and can integrate equipment from other manufacturers. S&C's distribution system protection features PulseClosing technology for verifying that the line is clear of faults before initiating closing. PulseClosing reduces stress on system components as well as voltage sags experienced by customers upstream of a fault.
EPB, one of the largest municipal power distributors in the country, is currently building a 100% fiber optic communication system that will be the backbone for the utility's smart grid. In October 2009, EPB was awarded $111.5 million in federal stimulus funding from the Department of Energy to expedite its smart grid implementation, which includes an increased number of automated switches installed on its electric grid in an expedited timeframe.
