Field Services
Turnkey substation services — new construction, scheduled maintenance, switch and transformer work, testing & diagnostics, and emergency repairs. Serving utilities and co-ops across Florida and the Southeast.
brought to your site.
Our tool trailer puts a fully-equipped mobile shop right at the substation — tools, equipment, and supplies staged on site so our crews can do the work wherever the job is, without trips back and forth to the shop. Pictured on the job in Central Florida, beneath the landmark “Mickey” transmission towers.
on a Baron rig.
Our Baron rig brings transformer oil processing to you — vacuum dehydration and hot oil processing — so we can dry, filter, and recondition oil right on site. Baron is the industry standard for this equipment, and it’s the rig we operate.
New substation construction from greenfield through commissioning. On time and on budget — with the advantage that we manufacture many of the components installed.
- Greenfield substation construction
- Equipment installation & setting
- Bus work & connections
- Control & relay installation
- Commissioning & energization support
Scheduled and corrective maintenance for substation equipment. Experienced with all major manufacturers across Florida and Southeast utility systems.
- Switch maintenance & repair
- Transformer processing & service
- Circuit breaker maintenance
- Switch bearing refurbishment in the field
- Testing & diagnostics
Scheduled, corrective, and emergency work across the substation — transformers, breakers, and disconnect switches. Any parts required can be supplied by Southern Switch & Contacts, manufactured to meet or exceed OEM specifications.
- Inspection
- Bushing changeout
- LTC inspection & maintenance
- LTC motor drive maintenance & repair
- Pump & valve maintenance & repair
- Fan & radiator repair
- Vacuum dehydration
- Hot oil processing
- Control cabinet repair & replacement
- Overall touchup & painting
- Regasketing & assembly
- Preventive maintenance
- Testing
- Bushing changeout
- Breaker changeout
- Commissioning
- Control cabinet repair & replacement
- Oil filtering
- Touchup & painting
- Inspection
- Adjustment
- Testing
- Installation
- Replacement parts
- Refurbishment — live parts, bearings, operators
- Bus modification
field or shop.
Comprehensive electrical testing of transformers, circuit breakers, and substation systems — powered by the Doble M4100 high-voltage apparatus tester, the Doble M5400 for SFRA, and the EZCT-2000C for CT testing, plus infrared scanning, battery-bank testing, and SF6 gas service.
- Dielectric testing
- DGA oil testing
- Overall power factor & capacitance
- Bushing power factor
- 3-phase or 1-phase TTR
- 3-phase or 1-phase excitation current
- 3-phase winding resistance
- 3-phase or 1-phase leakage reactance
- Insulation resistance
- CT testing (EZCT-2000C)
- SFRA (Doble M5400)
- Oil, vacuum & SF6 breakers
- Bushing power factor
- Hi-pot
- Insulation resistance
- DLRO contact resistance
- Timing tests
- Infrared (thermographic) scanning
- Battery bank testing
- SF6 gas analysis & handling
Leaking ABB breaker mechanism? See how we reseal, repair a cracked manifold, and pressure-test the unit for 24 hours before it ships back.
comes at 2 AM,
we answer.
Unplanned outages are costly. Our emergency response dispatches an experienced crew fast — and because our machine shop runs the same way, we can fabricate any needed replacement parts and have them at your site the same day.
A Southern Switch engineer answers the phone — not a queue. Same-day or next-day field dispatch depending on crew availability and travel distance.
not just “testing.”
Every service below is a real page with the named test methods, the standards they follow (NFPA 70B, IEEE C57, IEEE C37, IEEE 400, IEEE 450, NERC PRC-005), and the apparatus we cover. Click in to see what gets tested and how.
Documented acceptance tests on new substation equipment before energization.
NFPA 70B and IEEE-aligned periodic testing to keep substation equipment in service.
DGA, oil quality analysis, TTR, Doble power factor, and SFRA on power transformers.
Contact resistance, timing, HiPot, and primary injection on oil, vacuum, and air breakers.
VLF tan delta, partial discharge, insulation resistance, and HiPot on medium-voltage cable.
Thermographic surveys of energized substations with documented anomaly reports.
IEEE 450 / 1188 testing on station batteries, chargers, and DC distribution.
24/7 availability with same-day or next-day field dispatch.
Routine and detailed walkdowns — safety, asset condition, NERC PRC-005 readiness.
behind the work.
Our field technicians write about the tests they run every day. If you want to understand what a test measures, what a result means, or how a specific piece of equipment works before we show up, start here.
What CHL, CH, and CL power factor measurements tell you about insulation condition.
C1 and C2 test interpretation, capacitance tip-up, and when a bushing should come out.
How sweep frequency response analysis detects winding deformation, core movement, and loose connections.
What acetylene, hydrogen, and combustible gas ratios reveal about fault type and severity.
Ratio, polarity, excitation curve, knee-point voltage, and burden testing to IEEE C57.13.
Detecting open circuits, shorted turns, tap changer problems, and high-resistance connections.
Contact resistance, timing, oil condition, and mechanism inspection on OCBs.
How thermographic surveys find hot connections before they cause an outage.
Most substation work touches more than one discipline. When a project calls for a capability outside what we cover in-house — NETA-accredited testing, specialized power-systems engineering, or scopes that benefit from an engineering peer on the bench — we bring in known partners. The list below is the actual short list, not a directory.
we install.
When a repair stalls because a contact or component has been discontinued, we don’t wait on a supplier — we make it in our own machine shop, to OEM dimensional spec, with material certification available on request. Manufacturing utility components in Palm Harbor, FL since 1982. Most field crews can’t say that.
utility world.
From investor-owned utilities to municipal power, cooperatives, industrial plants, renewables, and data centers — wherever there’s a substation, we supply the parts and the crews.
Keeping large T&D fleets in service.
A responsive, FMEA-member partner.
Parts for equipment the OEM dropped.
Uptime for plant substations.
Collector substations & tap changers.
Mission-critical power reliability.
on every site.
Working inside an energized substation leaves no room for shortcuts. Our crews follow utility safety requirements and industry best practices on every job, and we keep our contractor-safety prequalification current with the platforms utilities rely on. Southern Switch & Contacts is an approved vendor for multiple utilities in both ISN (ISNetworld) and Avetta — so the compliance paperwork is already in place before we mobilize.
- Approved vendor in ISN (ISNetworld)
- Approved vendor in Avetta
- Prequalified for multiple utilities
- Experience Modification Rate (EMR): 0.82
- Experienced, safety-trained substation technicians
when you call us.
From first contact to boots on site, here is how a typical field services engagement runs.
Tell us what you have and what’s happening. We’ll ask the right questions — equipment type, condition, voltage class, urgency, and site access. No intake forms, no ticket queue. A Southern Switch engineer picks up.
We put together a clear scope of work — what’s included, what equipment our crew brings, what you’ll need to have ready on site, and any access coordination required. If partner capabilities are needed, we say so upfront.
You get a written proposal with a firm price, expected crew size, timeline, and crew credentials. We do not throw a number at you and figure out the rest later. No scope surprises on site.
Crew dispatches with the right test equipment and tooling. We handle logistics, crane coordination where needed, and daily site safety compliance from day one. Test results and documentation are delivered with the job.
Four TECO power transformers serving critical infrastructure in the Tampa Bay area — including MacDill Air Force Base — elevated onto flood-hardened platforms. Southern Switch coordinated the heavy-lift crane operations, managed platform setting, and performed complete apparatus testing on all units prior to return to service.
Read the case study →
A 230 kV autotransformer failed in service and needed to be replaced under emergency conditions. Southern Switch sourced a compatible replacement unit, handled all transformer testing, and commissioned it back into service to restore transmission capacity.
Read the case study →