Israel Electric Corporation (IEC) has made a strategic investment in Prisma Photonics, a start-up based in Tel Aviv that is developing optical monitoring solutions.
The PrismaPower is a fiber optics based electrical overhead powerline monitoring solution. As part of the collaboration with IEC, the Prisma Photonics system was deployed on IEC’s transmission grid. It identifies safety incidents such as compromising or climbing power towers, electrical issues, short circuits, and partial electric discharges. It also alerts for unusual weather events such as strong winds, lightning hits near the lines, etc. In addition, the electro-optical fiber monitoring further protects against physical cyber-hacking of the communication infrastructure.
By leveraging IEC’s optical fiber network, PrismaPower monitors 100 km of grid for electrical faults, physical damage to power towers and transmission lines, and extreme weather conditions. The system tracks faults and events right down to the power tower closest to the source of the problem.
“Having your strategic customer as your strategic partner is the strongest vote of confidence a company can hope for,” added Dr. Eran Inbar, Prisma Photonics’ CEO. “As an innovative corporation, IEC started collaborating with us six months ago. The current investment supports its commitment to advancing Israel’s power supply industry through innovation. To date, our system has transformed the optical fiber infrastructure deployed on IEC’s high-voltage grids into a sequence of extremely sensitive sensors that identify issues and track their precise location down to the nearest power tower level in real-time and with no need for placing additional sensors along the transmission lines.”
Prisma Photonics raises $20 million for fiber sensing
Prisma Photonics, a start-up based in Tel Aviv, announced $20 million in a Series B funding for its optical monitoring solutions.
Prisma Photonics said its fiber sensing works by transmiting optical pulses down a fiber. A minute fraction of light is reflected from each point along the fiber. The system measures the reflected light to determine the strain, temperature, pressure, and other quantities over hundreds of kilometers of fiber with sub-meter resolution.
The funding round was led by New York-based global private equity and venture capital firm Insight Partners, with participation from SE Ventures (Schneider Electric’s venture capital arm) and Future Energy Ventures, the venture capital investment and collaboration platform of E.ON. This brings the total funding raised by Prisma Photonics to over $30 million. The company’s earlier investors include i3 Equity Partners and Chione Switzerland.
Prisma Photonics customers manage thousands of kilometers of infrastructures, among them New York Power Authority, Israeli Natural Gas Lines, Israel Electric Corporation and other tier-1 utility operators).
“With the demand for energy on the rise, utility operators find it harder to keep their assets operating smoothly and safely. It is a challenge to monitor and maintain these long infrastructures,” said Dr. Eran Inbar, Prisma Photonics CEO. “Our Machine Learning based solutions are unique as we address this huge scale challenge with ease and accuracy. The investment is a vote of confidence from Insight Partners and a first of its kind in a new domain of critical infrastructure management.”
https://www.prismaphotonics.com
