Partner Article

Fusion IP announces £635,000 FCL grant

Sheffield-based Fusion IP plc (AIM: FIP), the university commercialisation company that turns world-class research into business, has announced that one of its businesses, Fault Current Limited, has been awarded a £635,000 grant from the Department of Energy and Climate Change.

The DECC Energy Entrepreneurs Fund grant will enable Fault Current Limited (FCL) to develop and test its next generation fault current limiter for sale to distribution network operators and renewable energy generators.

FCL, which is founded on the invention of Dr Jeremy Hall of the Wolfson Centre for Magnetics, based at Cardiff University’s School of Engineering, has devised a unique magnetic fault current limiter design that protects utility electrical distribution networks from unanticipated power surges.

The need for fault current limiters is driven by a dramatic increase in electrical power system fault current levels as energy demand increases and more clean energy sources, such as wind and solar, are added to an ageing and already overburdened national electrical infrastructure.

Unlike competing faults current limiters currently in service, FCL’s unique solution is designed to be a completely passive, ‘fit and forget’ permanent magnet device, that requires no external power or back-up, recovers automatically when a fault is cleared and requires minimal maintenance.

David Baynes, chief executive officer of Fusion IP, commented: “This is a great example of a brilliantly simple idea being turned into a potentially world class product.

“We look forward to working with both the FCL team and DECC, as FCL develops this groundbreaking solution to a major global problem for the power network providers.”

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Mark Lane .