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January 7, 2013

Amantys Powers Ahead With Fresh Funding Round

Bryn Parry
CEO, Amantys Limited

Power Channels: Energy Efficiency, Motion Control, Power Quality Protection, Renewable Energy, Switch-Mode Power

Darnell Group interviewed Bryn Parry, CEO of Amantys Limited, the fast-growing company that is enjoying considerable success with its “power simplified, by design” mantra. The company recently announced the successful closure of a new funding round of $8m. This significant new financing enables Amantys to expand into new markets and build on its successful power drive product family, launched in November 2011. This additional round of funding has again been led by Moonray Investors, part of Fidelity International.

When asked about the new markets and applications, Bryn was very clear: He sees Amantys’ future as expanding into new regions and new applications. Areas such as traction and wind power are of special interest to this dynamic company. Wind applications especially are where Bryn sees an opportunity for Amantys to save its customers significant amounts of money by avoiding the costly downtime associated with this evolving industry, particularly when the installation is located offshore. I believe Bryn was not joking when he said that he had heard figures in the renewables industry saying, “When a turbine goes down, it’s like seeing your profits escaping downwind - lost forever.”

Another mission-critical opportunity for Amantys is the electric railway system where high reliability means everything. At present, the time taken to service or repair these systems, whether wind or rail, is so great that profits are hit very hard for operators and their investors. Amantys’ plug-and-play philosophy helps dramatically to reduce these painful costs. Another aspect of the company’s crusade for higher reliability is seen in the way it monitors its products while in operation. By strategic placement of a sensor on the baseplate of a IGBT, for example, fault conditions can be alerted prior to it becoming a catastrophic failure and maintenance planned-in rather than it becoming a high-cost “rescue operation”.

But as frequently reported in the power industry, not all customers are aware of the need to avoid costly downtime by utilizing the “fault prediction” technology that Amantys builds in to its products. The company uses a small ARM controller to collect the critical parameters within the IGBT and to fire the data out on the existing “Acknowledge” line, thereby requiring no extra cabling or fibers to comprehensively monitor the health of the power electronics. Traditionally this would be performed by a simple thermocouple arrangement with the usual design problems associated with the high noise levels and creepage issues prevailing in high power installations. The ARM controller system adopted by Amantys simply does not suffer these problems. As Bryn eloquently puts it, “A little intelligence goes a long way in saving large amounts of cash for customers.”

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