Ampacimon was founded in 2010 as a spin out of the University of Liege where research started in 2003 into Dynamic Line Rating Solutions. With that, the company is one the first in the space. This has evolved into a company that focuses on a broad set of grid monitoring solutions, that goes beyond Dynamic Line Rating and spans transmission, distribution, overhead, and underground cable monitoring. This has led Ampacimon to become one of the leading sensor companies for Dynamic Line Rating. In addition to the US customers lined up in the Customer Section, there are a good number of deployments in Europe.

The company's main hardware products are sensors for Dynamic Line Rating applications that are placed directly on the conductor. Ampacimon's sensor directly measures line sag and perpendicular wind speed through 3 accelerometers. The sensors also include a tension sensor for ice detection and conductor aging, and harvest energy from the conductor to power the sensors.

• ADR Sense: sensor for transmission lines
• ADR Sense D: sensor for distribution lines

The available software products span across different planning and operations scenarios for dynamic line rating:

• ADR View: Ampacity quantification and modeling tool, based on historical weather forecast
• ADR Operate: Data-Acquisition and ampacity computation in real time
• ADR Trend: 1-4 hours ampacity forecast
• ADR Horizon: 60 hours ampacity forecast using weather forecast data

The data warehousing can be done both on premise or in the cloud, because data does qualify for NERC CIP

• Per sensor hardware cost
• License fee for the software subscription for different products
• Support agreement in different tiers
• Depending preferences, customers qualify the solution package either as OPEC or as CAPEX in case of longer term commitments.

Ampacimon’s patented sensing method relies on sensing the low frequency mechanical vibrations of the line (induced by wind and thermal convection) and use them to compute the sag of the line

ADR Sense’s principle relies on the direct relationship linking the fundamental vibration frequency of a conductor to the sag, instead of inferring the sag from clearance observation.

ADR Sense other main feature is that, besides temperature and sag, and conductor current, it measures wind speed on the conductor itself. The wind speed computed by ADR Sense is the resulting perpendicular component to the line, i.e. the component to be taken into account for ampacity computations. It is measured thanks to a patented algorithm that analyses line vibrations, and computes the wind speed component inducing such vibrations (either “aoelian vibrations” for low wind speeds, or analysis of vibrations amplitudes for higher wind speeds).

Broadly the company offers three product/service lines for distinct applications:

• Dynamic Line Rating: for optimization or transmission and distribution assets to minimize grid congestion and allow for further renewables penetration.
• Health Monitoring: To understand the useful life of conductors based on tension strength of the conductors and improve grid reliability.
• Situational Awareness: For ice detection, galloping lines, and electrical faults.

Out of these applications, the DLR application has been very well developed and proven with plenty of utility deployments in Europe and the US. The other are relatively new and have been added recently and these capabilities are partly added through acquisition.