FWT has invested a total of £2.1 million into high voltage sensor technology company Synaptec, with its first investment in 2019.
Synaptec was founded in 2015 as a spinout from the University of Strathclyde. The innovations developed by Synaptec are based on work conducted at the University of Strathclyde’s Institute for Energy and Environment, one of Europe’s leading power engineering research groups.
Electric power grids are becoming increasingly complex to manage due to a growing proportion of energy being provided by renewable sources. New methods are required to measure and maintain a stable electricity supply for customers. Synaptec addresses this problem by passively monitoring the grid using existing optical fibre networks. It avoids expensive auxiliary equipment for communications, GPS or power at measurement locations and can operate over a range of 100km. Synaptec’s systems are safer to install, have a smaller footprint and lower environmental impact than alternative sensors.
Synaptec offers the first secure and scalable system for wide area fault detection, monitoring and analytics of electric power grids that is cost-effective at scale. It has already seen demand for its systems from international customers.
More information on Synaptec is available at https://synapt.ec/
