Halden, Norway - May 25, 2010 - Wirescan AS, a provider of products and services for diagnosis and condition monitoring of cables, announced today that it has secured NOK 25 million in a financing round led by Siemens Venture Capital GmbH and SåkorninVest II AS, a company managed by Procom Venture of Stavanger Norway. This step will enable the company to accelerate market entry of its patent-pending Line Resonance Analysis (LIRA) technology, a product targeting major players in the electric power and oil & gas industries.
Joining the Wirescan board of directors are Gerd Goette, investment partner at Siemens Venture Capital, a unit of Siemens Financial Services Inc., and Jørn Gergeland, partner of Procom Venture, which represents SåkorninVest II AS. Along with the unique LIRA technology and our dedicated staff, securing this financing wil enable us to increase market penetration and further develop our portfolio, said Per Nossen, managing director of Wirescan AS. As a result, we will be able to address specific applications in power transmission and distribution, subsea cables and offshore wind, oil and gas as well as in nuclear power generation.
Power generated from renewable energy energy sources puts tremendous strain on the electrical grid because of its distributed, intermittent nature, said Ralf Schnell, COE of Siemens Venture Capital GmbH. Wirescan has developed a unique technology that allows assessing and monitoring the condition of power cables. This enables power utilities to further increase reliability while optimizing maintenance efforts.
The LIRA technology was developed between 2004 and 2005 by the Institute for Engergy Technology (IFE) IN Halden, Norway, as a part of the international nulear research program OECD Halden Reactor Project. This projects aim was to develop a tool to assess the condition of cables used in nulear power plants. We founded Wirescan AS in 2005 to industrialize and commercialize the unique measurement technology, said Fridtjov Øwre, research director of IFE/HRP, adding, Its exciting to have new investors on board. This will accelerate the commercialization of the LIRA technology.
Introduced to the market in 2008, the LIRA system assesses and monitors the general degradation of the cable insulation caused by harsh environmental conditions (high temperatures, humidity, radiation). It also detects local degradation of the insulation material as a result of mechanical impact or local abnormal environmental conditions. The LIRA system is unique in its ability to detect degradations with an accuracy of 0.3 percent of cable length and in its capacity to test energized cables.
Wirescan has demonstrated the superior capabilities of its LIRA system for fault finding and condition monitoring on power, subsea and signal cables not only in northern Europe, but also in the United States, Brazil and the Middle East.
