TE News: Smart grid solutions for Americas through Kries partnership

Solar farm, wind farm and grid operators benefit from power flow information for effective energy network and asset management.

TE Connectivity (TE), a world leader in connectivity and sensors, and Germany-based Kries-Energietechnik GmbH & Co. KG (Kries) have signed a sales agreement covering North, Central and the majority of South America. Through the agreement, TE becomes the exclusive seller in the region of Kries’ portfolio of grid monitoring products that enable a smarter, more reliable and sustainable power network.

Grid operators and renewable asset managers face pressing challenges, from an aging power infrastructure and higher grid performance required for the transition to renewable energy, to power grid uptime targets and improving installer safety. The joint portfolio of TE and Kries offers convenient smart grid solutions to digitalize existing networks and provide information about where and how much power is flowing. These intelligent digital systems pinpoint faults and weak connections in the grid, providing an effective tool for power monitoring and asset management. As a result, costly, labor-intensive upgrades on the entire grid become unnecessary.

“For 28 years, Kries has been an international player in digitalizing the grid and helping to effectively reduce the system average interruption duration index (SAIDI),” said Gunter Kries, CEO, founder and owner of Kries. “I am excited about the partnership with TE in the Americas, where we will introduce smart tools to grid operators who already rely on TE’s renowned Raychem power cable accessories. Our combined solutions deliver consistent fault location, isolation and service restoration (FLISR) and save operations and maintenance cost, time and labor.”

“This partnership is an important milestone in TE’s 60-year commitment to help our customers reliably keep the power on. By enabling a smarter grid, we proudly help them accelerate the transition to renewable energy across the Americas,” said Bijal Thakkar, vice president and general manager of TE’s Americas Energy business.

Through the exclusive partnership, TE will provide three key levels of smart grid monitoring solutions from Kries: permanent voltage monitoring and detecting with the CAP-Line, fault indication on underground and overhead networks with the IKI-Line, and remote monitoring and feeder control for substations with the PON-Line. These product lines can be used with TE’s Raychem switchgear connectors and high voltage terminations for applications such as substations, underground and overhead power distribution networks.

In 1994, Kries-Energietechnik began developing monitoring solutions for distribution networks to improve personal safety during operation of switchgears and detecting failures in the network. Distribution network operators rely on Kries-Energietechnik products globally as an integral element for SAIDI reduction. Kries-Energietechnik is a privately held firm, located in Waiblingen, Germany, with subsidiaries worldwide, specializing in the design, manufacture and installation of smart fault detection and intelligent monitoring systems for distribution networks.