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A Century of Innovation
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Liquid Fuse to Smart Grid
A Century of Innovation
When S&C Electric
Company previewed a
radical new product called
IntelliRupter PulseCloser
at an industry trade show
in 2006, the competition
said it couldnt be done . . .
. . . They should have known better
Over the next three years, more than a dozen teams of
S&C engineers, software developers, and manufacturing
experts turned IntelliRupter from raw concept to finished
product. Nowwith utilities installing hundreds of the
devices on their systemsIntelliRupter is helping define the
emerging Smart Grid.
IntelliRupter continues a tradition of technical
breakthroughs that began in 1909 when the company
founders, Edmund O. Schweitzer and Nicholas J. Conrad,
developed a liquid fuse to interrupt high-voltage short
circuits. In the 1940s, S&Cs engineers conceived the AldutiRupter Switch, which confined the high-voltage arc to an
enclosed interrupter where it cant cause a fire. In the 1960s,
there was Circuit-Switcher, another game changer that
couldnt be done. . . until S&C did it. Most recently,
IntelliRupter and other innovations use electronics and
software to do things that were once considered impossible.
S&C employs 1,700 people at its Chicago headquarters
and 200 more in other U.S. locations. It has subsidiaries in
Canada, Brazil, China, Mexico, and Europe. Small, nimble,
and employee-owned, S&C is a global leader in power
systems technologies.
There arent very many
companies around that could
have pulled this off, said
S&C President and CEO
John Estey, when the first
IntelliRupter was shipped.
Developing the future
he Smart Grid heals itself, and here too, S&C is a leader.
IntelliRupter PulseClosers, combined with the IntelliTEAM SG
Automatic Restoration System, communicate with each other and
make operating decisions that keep the lights on. And S&Cs TripSaver
Dropout Recloser replaces old-fashioned fuses or reclosers with an
intelligent device that reduces the need to send out line crews.
To connect wind farms to the grid, S&Cs power quality teams build the
PureWave DSTATCOM, a truck-sized device that rides the alternatingcurrent waveform and injects current exactly as needed to maintain a
steady power factor. S&Cs Smart Grid SMS Storage Management System
captures energy when demand is low, stores it in 80-ton arrays of sodiumsulfur batteries, and returns it to the grid during periods of peak demand.
Smart Grid SMS Storage Management System allows better
utilization of renewable energy such as wind power. It offers
megawatt-hours of energy storage for Smart Grid applications,
permitting this power to be dispatched when its needed.
TripSaver Dropout Recloser is ideally
suited for lateral circuits that frequently
experience momentary faults. TripSaver
eliminates the permanent outages that
result when lateral fuses operate in
response to these momentary faults.
IntelliRupter PulseCloser is a breakthrough in overhead
distribution system protection. Its a unique alternative to
conventional reclosers. IntelliRupter was designed from the
ground up to accommodate advanced distribution
automation functions.
PureWave DSTATCOM Distributed Static Compensator is specifically designed to
address voltage regulation and power factor issues. It supports dynamic power factor
requirements or system voltage during normal operation, and compensates for
voltage sags which can cause wind turbines to trip off-line.
S&C was founded in 1911 as Schweitzer & Conrad, Inc. Its mission was to
help utilities protect their systems from short circuits. That role continues
today, but now S&Cs products use sensors, relays, and microprocessors to
identify circuit disruptions and respond so quickly that many users dont
even see a blink in the lights.
How S&C grew from a one-person shop into a global enterprise is a story
of innovation, manufacturing prowess, and testing ingenuity. It is a story
of survival... from paying back an initial $1,000 loan, to making it
through the Great Depression and World War II. Most of all, it is about
opportunities capturedfrom the first decades of a brand-new industry
to todays digital revolution.
Dawn of the electric age
n the early 1900s, as consumers embraced
electric lights and appliances, utilities
installed larger generators and stepped up
distribution voltages to reduce power losses.
But early high-voltage fuses often werent up to
the task. They didnt operate reliably, sometimes
resulting in fires and explosions. After one such
fire in 1909 at Commonwealth Edisons Fisk
Generating Station in Chicago,
the utility gave two of its top engineers an
assignment: Find a better way to interrupt
short circuits.
Edmund O. Schweitzer
Nicholas J. Conrad
Nicholas Conrad, then 27, and Edmund
Schweitzer, 20 years older, got to tinkering and
soon invented something completely new:
a spring-loaded fusible element
inside a glass tube filled with
arc-extinguishing liquid. When
short-circuit current melted the
element, the spring stretched out
the arc, which was quenched
in the liquid.
It was a breakthrough idea . . . and they
knew it. Conrad began making Liquid Fuses
on his home workbench, selling them to
Commonwealth Edison for $1.25 each. Soon
other customers were placing orders. The two
men borrowed $1,000 in 1911 and formed
Schweitzer & Conrad, Inc.
At first, a single employee named
Ed Toman did all the assembly. But orders
kept growing.
In 1915, Schweitzer and Conrad invested
$30,000 to build a factory on Ravenswood
Avenue, on Chicagos North Side. The following
year, Conrad quit his Commonwealth Edison
job to devote full-time to the enterprise... a
decision Schweitzer thought was too risky. By
the mid-1920s, 110 employees worked in the
noisy shop that smelled of solder. August
Cherrie was one of them, earning 58 cents an
hour as he filled and sealed 100 fuses a day.
Ravenswood Avenue factory.
Competing in a crowded field of equipment
suppliers, the company distinguished itself
with high-quality manufacturing and a steady
stream of new devices: choke coils and
lightning arresters, many sizes of fuses, even a
giant Pantograph Switch that could close into
a live circuit at 138,000 volts. Deploying new
technologies five to ten years before the
competition became an S&C hallmark.
Theyre not copycats, said Edgar
Kobak, who in 1918 sold Nicholas
Conrad the companys first ad in
Electrical World magazine.
The original Liquid Fuse.
Pantograph Switch.
Being a leader came with risks: S&C had to
invest heavily in research, constantly upgrade
manufacturing, and stand behind its products
when something went wrong. The first such
problem came in the 1920s when utility crews
found corrosion and leakage at the solder seal
of older fuses. Conrad assigned the problem
to Sigurd Sig Lindell, a young engineer who
would later become Vice President for
Research and Engineering.
After inspecting the corroded fuses and
testing various possible solutions, Lindells
team finally got the results they wanted with
a new non-solder design. Conrad then offered
customers free replacements for their
existing fuses.
Johns dream
icholas J. Conrad was a restless and driven man, rarely
satisfied with current technologies or how they were
being applied. He constantly talked about new product
ideas and personally earned 49 patents. But that fertile mind was
also prone to dejection, and in 1930 Conrads poor health forced
him to sell out to a motor control manufacturer, Cutler-Hammer.
The company name didnt change, and most of the staff stayed
on. They earned 111 more patents during the Great Depression,
keeping the company alive even as production was cut to two or
three days a week.
The early liquid fuses were followed by bayonet-type fuse
cutouts for pole-top transformers, with double the interrupting
capacity of competitors box cutouts. A second generation of
liquid fuses used precision silver elements that allowed
operations to be coordinated within 1/60th of a second. Next
came solid material fuses lined with arc-quenching boric acid.
These could be fitted with exhaust condensers and used in
cabinets, or deployed outdoors to extend fault protection to
750megavolt-amperes . . . well beyond the limits of liquid fuses.
A bigger problem was switching high-voltage circuits without
the buzz and flash of an external arc. It could be done with
oil-filled circuit breakers, but they were expensive, heavy, and a
fire risk. By the late 1930s, Sig Lindell and Anthony Van Ryan
had patented something better. Their load-interrupter switch
snuffed the arc in an enclosed interrupter featuring springloaded contact and liner materials that created de-ionizing gases.
These switches would later appear on pole tops everywhere. But
they had a more immediate use during World WarII. With
circuit breakers in short supply, S&C answered the call by mating
the switches with fuses inside cabinets. It was the earliest version
of S&Cs Metal-Enclosed Switchgear.
A young John Conrad with Nicholas Conrad at
the 1927 National Electric Light Association
Convention in Atlantic City.
Conrad recovered his health by the 1940s and
saw great opportunities for growth as suburbia
sprawled across Americas landscape. He wanted
to get back in the action. Cutler-Hammer was
willing to sell, and so was Edmund Schweitzer,
who had retained a small interest. Conrad
repurchased the company in 1945 and recruited
his son, John, as its new leader.
At first, John was apprehensive about joining
his father. He had risen to the position of
properties manager at Douglas Aircraft, in
Long Beach, California... a job he loved. But
he liked the idea of a privately-owned company
where he and his father could invest as they saw
fit, pursuing long-term goals instead of
short-term profits.
John would spend the next 50 years in an
all-consuming drive to create an ideal industrial
company. He would build a world-class
manufacturing campus, start a subsidiary in
Canada and a joint venture in Mexico, and press
his teams to invent all-new product categories.
Through the force of his personality and his
commitment to integrity, John Conrad rose to
prominence in an industry dominated by
much-larger companies, including General
Electric and Westinghouse. His leadership role
was cemented in the late 1950s when the U.S.
government indicted 29 major electric
equipment suppliers for participating in a
price-fixing scheme... but not S&C.
John Conrad refused to be involved in
such discussions.
Like George Pullman, who built a model town
around his railroad-car plant on Chicagos
South Side, John Conrad envisioned his
company helping employees of all races and
ethnicities grab hold of the American Dream.
Pullmans ideal was never realizedspoiled by
rigid rules and labor strifebut John Conrad
made his dream come true.
He provided employees with above-average pay
and benefits, a comfortable factory, and a social
environment that included bowling leagues,
family picnics, and Christmas parties. In return,
he asked for complete loyalty, attention to
detail, and a very high standard of quality and
cleanliness. Overtime added to the income of
factory employees when business was good, and
helped avoid layoffs when demand slowed. His
formula worked. Many employees stayed at
S&C for their entire careers.
Employee family picnic in 1946.
Years of plenty
chweitzer & Conrad, Inc. changed
its name to S&C Electric Company
after the war and aggressively
pursued sales as the economy roared
back to life. Utilities posted big orders to
build out their grids. The Conrads
poured money into the Ravenswood
plant, doubling capacity and sales by
1949. But that wasnt enough.
They borrowed $3 million to buy a
six-acre plot along Ridge Boulevard in
Chicago, and the first of many new
manufacturing buildings. By 1952, when
John became S&C President, he had
built the first extension on the Ridge
campus. He added two more before his
father died in 1956. Over the following
decades, he methodically acquired more
buildings and properties, transforming a
jumble of empty lots, railroad sidings,
and warehouses into todays pristine
46-acre campus.
Business boomed. Electricity was cheap.
Regulators encouraged utilities to build
new generation plants and upgrade their
grids. Suppliers had to deliver quality
equipment, but as Conrad said to
10
colleagues, If you were in business in
the 1950s, you couldnt help but make
money. And since Conrad had little
interest in money for himself, he
reinvested most of the profits to
maintain S&Cs leadership position in
the industry.
Erle Nye was first exposed to S&C in
1960 when he was fresh out of
engineering school, during a training
rotation with a Dallas Power & Light
distribution crew. The utility used
three brands of fuses, said Nyes
supervisor. But in situations that
required precise coordination, they
used only S&C fuses. The supervisor
told me about the non-damageable
silver fuse elements and I could tell by
the reverence in his voice that this was
a special piece of equipment. Nye later
rose to CEO of the parent company,
TXU, and after retirement became an
S&C board member. There was
always something a little bit better
about S&C gear, he said, or a unique
engineering feature that the
competitors didnt have.
John R. Conrad and his father Nicholas broke ground for the first
building on Ridge Boulevard in 1949.
The specialists advantage
ohn Conrad believed that staying ahead
of the competition required a tight
product niche and long-term investments,
made possible by the companys private
ownership. He had no interest in selling his
company, despite regular inquiries, and
especially disliked huge conglomerates. Im not
about to let S&C become the trinket of some
big empire, he proclaimed.
But competition was stiff. S&C would survive
only by offering the kind of product that no
one else makes.
So S&Cers created a stream of devices that kept
customers coming back. The Type XS Cutout,
introduced in 1954, became the industry
standard because of its rugged construction and
single-venting design. The Loadbuster Tool,
first offered in 1958, was a lightweight, portable
interrupter attached to a hookstick; it allowed a
lineperson to safely open an energized cutout
or disconnect switch. In 1959, S&C introduced
Circuit-Switcher, a transmission-voltage device
that could replace a circuit breaker in many
applications, at a significant cost savings.
Circuit-Switcher became a whole family of
products and remains a big seller today.
Great products alone were not the key to
success, however. S&Cs sales force, comprised
exclusively of experienced engineers who knew
how power systems worked, distinguished S&C
from the competition. By spending time at
substations and in bucket truckshelping
customers meet real-world challengesthey
reinforced S&Cs reputation as a true business
partner. They routinely worked with the
factory to create gear customized for particular
needs, and asked utilities to review products
under development.
When a hurricane or ice storm took down
power lines, S&C would go into overdrive,
working nights and weekends to make and ship
replacement fuse links, cutouts, and switches.
Customers appreciated these efforts, and often
said so.
This same approach kept business booming in
Canada, first through a licensee and then a
subsidiary. S&C Canada was started in 1953
with seven people and a couple of drill presses.
It employed 60 by 1958, became self-sufficient
in production of Metal-Enclosed Switchgear
in 59, and moved to a new plant in 1961.
By providing on-site engineering and
manufacturing capabilities, S&C Canada earned
business from most of that countrys utilities as
well as export markets. Today, it provides the
blueprint for S&Cs expansion into Brazil,
China, Mexico, and Europe.
S&Cs regional
centers develop
and manufacture
products suited to
their particular
markets.
11
Investing for tough times
ne of John Conrads most strategic
investments came in 1959 with
construction of the Nicholas J. Conrad
Laboratory Building. With its powerful
generator and testing equipment, the $2 million
lab expanded S&Cs knowledge of high-voltage
plasma fields, inrush currents, and transient
recovery voltages. This widened the gap
between S&C and its competitors, said Jacinto
Rodriguez, who managed the 11-person lab. In
circuit-interruption testing, he said, the
amateur uses the brute force approach, which
can result in devices that are overweight, underdesigned, and overpriced. In contrast, S&Cs
instrumentation finesse produced devices that
did what they were supposed to do, consistently
and accurately.
Thanks to the lab and other investments in
Chicago, employment grew to 1,200. But
difficult times loomed. The 1970s, Conrad
warned employees, would be an era of
survival. Rising electricity costs were forcing
utilities to reduce capital spending. New
competitors included the giant European
conglomerates ASEA Brown Boveri and
Siemens. And smaller suppliers were
undercutting S&C on price.
12
Conrad had been running the company for
more than 30 years, and would turn 65 in 1980.
He knew fresh blood was needed, so he ramped
up his recruitment efforts at university
engineering departments and began cultivating
new leaders, including a group he called the
young Turks.
One of those young leaders was John W. Estey,
who joined S&C in 1972 as a 22-year-old
electrical engineering graduate from Queens
University in Canada. Esteys plan was to work
a while in Chicago and then return to S&C
Canada. Instead he moved through various
Nicholas J. Conrad Laboratory dedication at the 50th anniversary celebration in 1961.
departments, earned an MBA at the University
of Chicago, and by 1977 was a vice president.
In 1988, Estey became President and in 1997
President and CEO.
We had to create a competitive cost structure
and our shipments had to be on time. And
frankly our quality, although very good, had
to get better.
The 1990s brought more upheaval, as regulators
sought to inject competition into the electric
utility industry. Rate cuts and squeezed profits
caused utilities to diversify, cut their staffs, and
push suppliers for price reductions. This
created new pressures on S&C.
This was an uncomfortable message for many
employees, who believed that the company
would go on forever. The payroll was filled with
fathers and sons, husbands and wives, and
networks of friends. There were more than
450members in the companys Quarter
Century Club. Many stayed much longer. Yet
Estey was telling everyone, at regular
company-wide meetings, that S&C was in a
battle for survival. He warned employees not
to simply assume that S&C was the best. That
would have to be proven, every day.
With Conrads backing, Estey began a complete
revamping of manufacturing. He restructured
the company to spread decision-making more
widely and to improve communication with
customers. We were drifting into weakness,
remembered Estey in 1994, one of the few years
when S&C produced no profits.
Success Through Employee
Participationthe STEP
programled to more
than 1,000 implemented
improvements in its first two
years, for an estimated savings
of over $1 million per year.
The focus of discussion throughout S&C: how to
increase sales and reduce costs.
13
As part of the turnaround effort, Estey ramped up training and safety
programs and asked all employees to bring their best ideas to work.
And Estey was especially impatient on the new-product front. He pushed
S&Cs engineers to develop a stream of unique high-tech devices.
For many years, piecework incentives and rigid top-down supervision
kept production moving. But times had changed. Estey instituted
team-driven manufacturing cells and phased out piecework because it
created too much inventory. Virtually every manufacturing area was
reorganized to create smaller batches of parts when needed, a process
that has continued to evolve and is now termed lean manufacturing.
In 1990, S&C introduced the industrys first all-in-one switch for
automating overhead distribution feeders, the Scada-Mate Switching
System. Remote Supervisory Pad-Mounted Gear, which accomplishes the
same function for underground distribution feeders, was introduced in
1991. Fault Tamer Fuse Limiter debuted in 1995 and brought a whole
new level of protection to pole-top transformers.
Fault Tamer Fuse Limiter provides enhanced transformer
protection, energy limitation, and coordination... plus
higher interrupting ratings and no expelled parts or sparks
during operation.
Scada-Mate Switching System offers
sensing, plus communication and
control, in one compact, easy-to-install
package.
14
Two years later, S&C came out with an advanced type of underground
gear, Vista Switchgear. The remote supervisory version of Vista, fitted
with specially configured relays, allowed S&C to introduce the
High-Speed Fault-Clearing Systema no-outage system offering a level
of service reliability unmatched in the industry. And for substation
transformer protection, S&C brought out the Trans-Rupter II
Transformer Protector in 2000.
These products had one thing in common. They all fit the S&C niche:
They did things that no other device could do.
Trans-Rupter II Transformer Protector combines the three-phase
tripping, high interrupting ratings, and sophisticated protection
capabilities of higher-cost circuit-switchers and circuit breakers...
with the simple installation procedures and minimal maintenance
requirements of lower-cost power fuses.
Remote Supervisory Vista Underground Distribution Switchgear
offers automated switching and fault protection and is suitable for
advanced applications such as the High-Speed Fault-Clearing System.
15
Global growth and services
ut the pressure never let up. To boost
sales, Estey focused on three strategies:
increase international volume, develop
cutting-edge products, and add services. These
approaches helped double revenues in just
10years.
Sales growth outside North America had begun
in the 1960s when John Conrad and Murray
Kurland established beachheads in the
Philippines, Latin America, and the Middle
East. Kurlands successor, Salvador Palafox,
traveled constantly to promote S&Cs offerings.
In 1997, using S&C Canada as a model, S&C
founded a regional center in Curitiba, Brazil.
The subsidiary started by selling switches and
Loadbuster Tools, then landed contracts to
design and build two electrical substations. It
rode out a five-year economic drought and was
ready when business rebounded in 2007. One
recent sale was a multi-million-dollar Vista
Switchgear automation network for a new
government center in Minas Gerais.
China was next. Palafox made three trips there
before seeing a single Omni-Rupter Switch
installed in Shanghai in 1995. Two years later,
Chinese utilities had purchased 1,000 switches.
S&C opened its China subsidiary in Suzhou in
2000, and today, 100-plus employees are serving
customers in 17 Chinese provinces, Australia,
and around the world.
16
S&C Mexico and S&C Europe followed, each
tailored to local markets. Having engineering
horsepower locally is key, said Angelo Gravina,
who helped start the Brazil and European
regional centers and is now Director of Sales
at S&C Canada.
You need to be there to hear what
the customer wants and to design
the customized gear that they need.
Also in the 1990s came the push into services,
just as utilities were cutting their engineering
staffs to reduce costs. The new Power Systems
Services Division found customers for
everything from system studies to turnkey
engineering, and in recent years has leveraged
its expertise in renewable energy and
emerging technologies.
S&C had a leading role in designing and
building what was then the largest wind farm in
Canada. S&C has become the nations leading
integrator of battery storage into utility systems.
Murray Kurland (second from the left) and others at the dedication of a new manufacturing facility
in Seoul, Korea.
Power Systems Services Smart Grid Project
Services promote the successful design,
implementation, and operation of customers
distribution automation strategies, including
the IntelliTEAM SG Automatic Restoration
System, High-Speed Fault-Clearing System,
and SCADA systems.
And Power Systems Services additionally
offers dedicated training for IntelliRupter
PulseCloser and other S&C equipment for
distribution automation, plus services
relating to other Smart Grid solutions, such
as the Smart Grid SMS Storage Management
System, and PureWave Power
QualityProducts.
Factory acceptance testing of
a customers IntelliTEAM SG
Automatic Restoration System,
performed at S&Cs Chicago
Headquarters, confirms that it
works as intended.
As the integrator for a Smart Grid SMS
Storage Management System project,
S&C was responsible for overall project
management, including all aspects of
engineering and equipment installation.
Maintenance and troubleshooting services
for PureWave Power Quality Products help
assure the continuity, reliability, and quality
of electrical service.
17
Mastering the waveform
lectronics are at the core of the emerging Smart Grid because
microprocessors and other digital devices can monitor the electric
waveform and respond within microseconds. S&C jumped into
electronics in the early 70s when John Zulaski invented a device to prevent
cascading failures of substation capacitor banks. S&Cers later invented the
Fault Fiter Electronic Power Fuse and the Micro-AT Source-Transfer
Control. In the early 1990s, they developed polymer-encapsulated current
and voltage sensors for the Scada-Mate Switching System.
Even so, small competitors were ahead of S&C in some areas. Fortunately,
help was on the way.
Milwaukee-based Omnion had developed an energy-efficient
uninterruptible power supply system that could detect problems with the
utility source and switch seamlessly to a battery backup. And a company
near San Francisco, EnergyLine, offered smart capacitor controls and a
sophisticated software package called the IntelliTEAM Automatic
RestorationSystem. S&C bought both companies in 1999. Three years
later, S&C purchased a distributed static compensation product from
Siemens. In the process, S&C gained world-class engineering talent in
power electronics and power systems.
One hundred years after Schweitzer and Conrad developed the liquid fuse,
S&C is still shaping the frontiers of the industry. Front and center is
IntelliRupter PulseCloser. It offers PulseClosing Technology, the first
major advancement in the power-handling aspects of fault isolation since
reclosing was introduced in the 1940s. Instead of simply reclosing to
determine if a fault is still presentpotentially slamming full short-circuit
current back into the systemIntelliRupter sends a tiny blip of power
down the line, reads the wave, then decides whether to close in or remain
open. Mated with S&Cs IntelliTEAM SG software, the device is the
leading technology in the creation of self-healing circuits.
18
In early 2010, S&C commissioned its new $37 million Advanced Technology Center,
a high-power laboratory that greatly expands S&Cs capacity for on-site testing.
It will speed the development cycle and help S&C be first to market with more
Smart Grid devices and software.
19
John Conrad would have enjoyed all of this . . .
especially that his company is competing
aggressively in an era as exciting as when his
father began taming the high-voltage arc.
On August30, 2005, at the age of 89, John
Conrad died at home. He had labored for
decades to ensure that his company would not
be sold off after his death.
John would have been very pleased
that on October1, 2007, S&C became
an employee-owned company.
Every one of its 1,900
U.S. employees now has
a stake in S&Cs future.
No one knows what that
future will bring. But as
S&C Electric Company
celebrates its 100th
anniversary, it remains
what it has always been: an innovation leader,
a company with integrity, and a place where
employees apply talent, ingenuity, and hard
work to serve customer needs.
John Conrad can rest easy.
S&C will thrive in its second century.
John R. Conrad breaking ground for the N.J. Conrad Laboratory in 1959.
20
www.sandc.com
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100-G343
2010
S&C
Electric
Company
2010
S&C
Electric
Company
Chicago,
Chicago,
Illinois
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Printed in
U.S.A.
Published
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