Substation Field Testing in Georgia

Southern Switch & Contacts deploys field crews throughout Georgia for transformer testing, circuit breaker testing, acceptance testing, and electrical maintenance on substation equipment. We serve Georgia's large utility fleet, investor-owned, cooperative, and municipal, from Atlanta metro substations to rural transmission and distribution stations across the state.

Georgia has a dense network of electric membership cooperatives operating distribution substations that range from aging equipment on original infrastructure to relatively recent additions. Many of the transformers in service across the state's co-op system are candidates for load tap changer maintenance, oil processing, and bushing assessment. We also support acceptance testing on new substation construction and protection system upgrades across the state.

Substation field services in Georgia.

We work with customers across Georgia Power's transmission and distribution system, Oglethorpe Power Corporation, the Georgia Transmission Corporation, and the network of Georgia EMCs, including Jackson EMC, Cobb EMC, Sawnee EMC, Greystone Power, Carroll EMC, Blue Ridge Mountain EMC, and others. Municipal systems in communities served by the Municipal Electric Authority of Georgia (MEAG) are also part of our service footprint.

Coverage areas include Atlanta metro, Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Athens, Rome, and rural counties throughout North Georgia, Middle Georgia, and the coastal and southern regions of the state.

Georgia EMC fleet condition and LTC maintenance.

Georgia has one of the densest electric membership cooperative networks in the country — 41 EMCs serving more than 4.5 million Georgians, most of them operating distribution substations built out across several decades. A large share of the substation transformer fleet in the EMC system carries load tap changers that were installed in the 1970s and 1980s and have not had a contact inspection since. The failure mode on an unmaintained LTC is predictable: contact erosion from cumulative operations, followed by increased DGA acetylene production, followed eventually by a tap changer event that takes the transformer out of service on an unplanned basis. LTC contact inspection, contact replacement where worn, and drive mechanism testing are the preventive work that avoids that sequence.

Transformer oil processing is a companion service for the same fleet. Many of the units in rural Georgia have oil that has never been processed — moisture content has been climbing for years, and dielectric values are at or approaching the point where a lightning strike or switching transient will cause a dielectric failure rather than a withstand. Oil processing with our vacuum dehydration rig is frequently combined with LTC service on the same outage, reducing total outage count for the co-op.

Mobilization from Florida into Georgia.

From Palm Harbor, FL, the crew and equipment reach Atlanta in roughly eight hours and most of the rest of Georgia in seven or less. For outage windows that start Monday morning, we typically mobilize the prior Sunday afternoon. Emergency response across Georgia, statewide, is next-day dispatch. We work with the EMC's outage scheduling calendar and provide the scope, crew-days, and equipment list in advance so the co-op can plan switching and notify members if required. Send us an asset list or a substation one-line and we'll put together a proposal.