Startups selected to the Program

Description

Swiss company in the smart grid domain offering an innovative solution based on D-PMU technology for real-time monitoring of distribution grids. Accurate Fault Location helps DSOs to reduce the impact or power outages, while State Estimation provides complete observability of grid voltages and power flows to manage grid congestions and optimize operations, asset management, and grid planning.

The Problem

Distribution grids are more and more congested and stressed by the increasing loads and generators being connected. This complicates the management of the distribution grid in terms of operations, asset management, planning, and threatens the reliability of the power supply for electricity customers. In addition, there are very few measurement devices in the distribution grid, so there is urgency for monitoring solutions that are easy to deploy and can provide useful insights to improve the management of the distribution grid.

The Solution

Zaphiro offers a real-time monitoring system for distribution grids that provides accurate Fault Location, complete grid voltages/power-flows observability via State Estimation, and Power Quality monitoring. All these functionalities can be achieved by deploying only a few measurement devices at strategic grid nodes (20% of substations) and with very simple installation, because only clamp-on current sensors are required (no voltage sensors). The measurement device (SynchroSense) is a PMU specifically designed for distribution grids (Distribution-Phasro Measurement Unit or D-PMU), which streams high-speed and time-synchronized data to the central software platform (SynchroGuard). SynchroGuard has various modules for fault location, state estimation, power quality, which provide to utility operators insights on the grid behavior, such as real-time detection and location of faults or alarms of congestions and voltage violations. This helps grid operators to optimize operations, predictive maintenance, asset management, and grid planning.

What makes us different?

SynchroGuard’s novelty is in the application of PMU technology specifically designed for distribution grids, while today PMUs are only used in niche applications in high-voltage transmission grids. Conventional technologies such as FPI (Fault passage indicators) and RTU (remote terminal units) devices require full scale deployment to provide merely limited visibility of the grid status and the detection of only some faults. Due to the high-speed and time-synchronized data of PMUs, fault location is more sensitive, accurate, and reliable, and the complete grid observability is achieved with lower number of devices and easy installation.