With the acquisition of PowerSense, a manufacturer of high-quality supervision and control systems for the power distribution industry, Landis+Gyr has strengthened its smart grid offering. Customers stand to benefit from a cost effective, scalable and modular technology which has already proven itself in a large rollout and perfectly complements Landis+Gyr’s core portfolio.
Founded as a spin-off of Danish utility DONG Energy in 2006, PowerSense has become a widely recognized provider of patented optical sensor technologies, as well as smart grid monitoring and controller products. Its product line has been designed for digitizing existing power distribution infrastructure to create an end-to-end smart grid solution. This solution is realized through retrofitting sensors onto the existing medium and low voltage power cables, transformers and switch gear, and through the integration of already installed electronic devices(e.g. S650, sub-meters, fault locaters, power quality analyzers, etc.) located at the substation level. In combination with Landis+Gyr’s and Toshiba’s existing grid management offerings the synergies become even more powerful, enabling grid operators to meet the challenges of distributed power generation, unpredictable loads and changing power consumption patterns. Since 2006, PowerSense has sold and delivered products and services to 35 utilities throughout the world.
Landis+Gyr plans to integrate PowerSense into its European operations thus providing significant added value to its customers. Andreas Umbach, CEO at Landis+Gyr says, “This acquisition sees the start of a powerful and attractive next generation of products, giving our customers a unique advantage to manage energy better in the fast developing world of smart grid applications.”
