Reinhausen Canada

Reinhausen has been represented in Canada since 2010 and, in addition to its traditional LTC maintenance service, offers transformer services nationwide in this second largest country in the world.

Olivier Uhlmann was simply destined to take the reins at Reinhausen Canada. 11 January is the birthday of the subsidiary; and it’s also his birthday and that of his father. “Some coincidences are more than mere coincidence” says Uhlmann with a grin. The headquarters of Reinhausen Canada have been located in Brossard, a municipality situated on the St. Lawrence River directly across from the bustling metropolis of Montreal since 2010.

Olivier Uhlmann and his Team. (© Reinhausen Canada)

Uhlmann, a native of Switzerland, has been working here for five years and MR products have been a part of Uhlmann’s entire professional life. Previously, he worked in various positions at ABB for over 20 years. “It was always very important for many of our customers that MR tap changers were installed in our transformers and I was always impressed by the major significance that the expertise of the global market leader from Regensburg had for customers” recalls Uhlmann.

The sale of MR products is just one pillar of the subsidiary. Transformer services that go far beyond mere tap-changer maintenance are becoming increasingly important. “We support our customers over the entire lifecycle of their transformers” Uhlmann notes. The energy sector in Canada is facing the same challenges that are being confronted in the rest of the world: brain drain resulting from demographic changes, aging equipment and, simultaneously, continuing grid expansion due to growing energy demand.

Reinhausen Canada offers extensive transformer services including tap-changer services, classic retrofits and even condition assessments of equipment and extensive modernization services such as the installation of sensors, and digitalization with ETOS® automation solutions. (© Reinhausen Canada)

As a result, there will certainly be more work to do in the future. “We want to be prepared for this” says Uhlmann, noting that Reinhausen Canada opened a new branch office this year in Edmonton, in the province of Alberta, to enable service technicians to get to customers faster. Today, Reinhausen is physically represented in both eastern and western Canada and can perform work across the entire country even though some of the locations of use are in very remote areas.

“People in Europe often have no idea just how large the country is” Uhlmann points out. “Our service technicians sometimes have to travel two days just to get to a customer.” And Reinhausen Canada is also expanding in terms of personnel: Next year, its team of 14 employees will expand to 21.