Most Damage to CE Gear Not From Surges, Says Power Management Firm

Only half of one percent of electrical damage to electronics is caused by surges, according to power protection company Innovolt. The company wants to apply its “intelligent power management” technology to address the 98 percent of issues that can include power sags and interruptions that can wreak havoc on microprocessors and hard disks. Jeff Spence, president of Innovolt, told Consumer Electronics Daily that the company is heading to CES with the goal of partnering with OEMs, ODMs and service providers for its chip-based power protection technology that can reside either inside electronics or as a chipset in the power supply between the component and the power outlet.

A microprocessor drives the decision making in Innovolt technology. The Innovolt brain looks at what’s happening on the electrical line and makes intelligent decisions about what should be done based on the environment and the characteristics of the device, Spence said. The technology is based on “the most substantial grid disturbance data collected.” Founder Deepak Divan studied the electrical grid and determined that less than one percent of damage or disruption to electronics was caused by the surges that most companies have been “feverishly protecting themselves against."

Instead, Divan determined that 70 percent of electronics damage comes from a “myriad of different types of power ’sags,'” momentary dips in voltage that vary in duration and severity. Sags themselves don’t cause damage to electronics, but the way electronics respond to sags draws current from the line, and that affects delicate components, Spence said. Power spikes can cause sags that affect electronics in a wide area, he said, comparing the grid to a spider web of connections. But other events -- a tree that falls on a power line, for instance -- may not cause a surge, but the event causes a “depression” that causes other power sources on the grid “to rush to fill the void,” he said. In a home, turning on a microwave oven might cause a flicker in the lights as the home’s power infrastructure tries to fill a power void. The resulting current in-rush to fill the void is “devastating to electronics,” he said. By reacting to different electrical glitches and making educated decisions on how to respond, Innovolt technology can reduce power-related failures by 93 percent, Spence maintained.

Innovolt is in discussions with a major cable provider for its technology, with an announcement due at the end of January, Spence said. Cable and DSL companies are the prime target for the technology because they have financial incentive to slash the number of service calls caused by a zapped set-top box. Innovolt makes the argument that components inside standard surge protectors -- which guard against a static event, a surge -- have been commoditized. “They exist now, for free, in every piece of electronics that goes out,” Spence said. TVs and receivers have built-in surge protection and filtering, and then consumers purchase additional surge protectors as “extra protection,” he said. Innovolt believes its approach to intelligent power managements offers a value that sets its power management apart.

In addition, the company collects data in its intelligent chipset about disturbances, power and other grid conditions that turns the product, in effect, into a “smart meter,” Spence said. “It can read power, identify disturbances, offer remote shutoff and have wireless communication elements as well,” he said. The company has no plans for a direct-to-consumer product model, but existing companies that offer power conditioning as accessory products are another target customer, he said. Innovolt offers the most value to technology companies that want to have a “leg up for their dealers and distributors who service customers,” he said, claiming the company can offer a “true dollars and cents reduction in service or replacement cost.”