News

18 August 2010

 

LumaSense acquires Opsens’ fiber-optic sensor technology

LumaSense Technologies of Santa Clara, CA, USA which designs and makes infrared and fiber-optic temperature and gas sensing solutions for end-users and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) in industrial, energy, medical and clean tech applications, has acquired fiber-optic sensing technology from Opsens Inc of Quebec, Canada that is used to help energy firms identify transformer hot spots and perform critical high-voltage equipment temperature monitoring.

LumaSense says that the deal for Opsens’ PowerSens system gives it a fiber-optics portfolio designed to help utilities improve power grid reliability involving generation, transmission and distribution assets.

“As global energy demand increases, transformer and electrical asset reliability is a growing priority,” says LumaSense’s CEO Vivek Joshi. “Transformer makers and utilities are looking for a wide range of options for improving system reliability across all sizes of transformers, distribution units included,” he adds.

The PowerSens system uses gallium arsenide sensors to measure temperature. LumaSense's overall fiber-optic measurement portfolio for utilities also includes the ThermAsset2 and LumaSmart systems based on Fluoroptic phosphor technology, which provides reliable temperature measurement in critical, large transformers, whereas GaAs is a cost-effective alternative for smaller projects that do not require as high a level of proven durability.

PowerSens customers will now have access to LumaSense’s larger portfolio of temperature-measurement technology, as well as its global support network of application engineers, comments Opsens’ president & CEO Pierre Carrier. “For Opsens, this gives us the perfect opportunity to focus on serving the needs of our customers in our main fields with our fiber-optic technology,” he adds.

In the electrical industry, LumaSense’s fiber-optic temperature (FOT) measurement technology is used on transformer winding hot spots. FOT uses rugged probes to directly measure winding temperatures more accurately than conventional methods, which have errors from inferring hot spots by trying to simulate or calculate the temperature versus measuring it directly.

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Visit: www.lumasenseinc.com/EN

Visit: http://opsens.com