Sensible Photonics bets its tech can shorten blackouts — and has $1M to prove it

Pittsburgh startup Sensible Photonics is betting its fiber optic tech could speed up power outage recovery — like what happened after this year’s major storm that left thousands in the dark.

Utility companies may know when power is out across the city, but they don’t know which specific neighborhoods are impacted, said Michelle McGregor-Smith, executive advisor of Sensible Photonics. 

When a severe storm hit Pittsburgh in late April, cutting power for about 800,000 people and leaving at least two dead, it took nearly two weeks to restore power across the region. More precise knowledge of where the outages were could have sped up recovery, according to McGregor-Smith. The Department of Energy seems to agree, doling out $1 million in innovation research contracts to the company. 

​​”One of the reasons why it took so long to respond is [utility companies] literally have to drive around manually and check the transformers one by one,” McGregor-Smith told Technical.ly. “So, sensing equipment like this would have easily sped up detection and repair.” 

Distribution transformers, the small metal barrels often placed on utility poles, don’t usually have built-in sensors. But one promising solution is fiber optic sensors, which are thin, flexible strands of glass or plastic that can transmit information using light instead of electricity. They carry data faster and more reliably over long distances than traditional wires.

When applied to the power grid, fiber optic sensors can give utilities real-time updates on the condition of equipment like transformers, helping spot problems early, but there are two major barriers to widespread implementation that Sensible Photonics is working to address, according to cofounder Paul Ohodnicki. 

Traditional fiber optic sensors tend to be expensive, Ohodnicki said. That’s why his startup avoids overengineering its products so the tech is more affordable and easy for utilities to adopt.  

Implementation is another barrier. Traditional fiber optic sensors often aren’t designed to fit easily into existing utility equipment. That’s something Sensible Photonics is also trying to change with its tech. 

“Our approach is to take a technology which is inherently more compatible with integration into systems like transformers, grid storage or other energy assets and to utilize it for real-time monitoring,” Ohodnicki said.

While the technology can’t prevent every failure, like a tree falling on a power line, it can give utilities valuable data to better plan maintenance and reduce risk, Ohodnicki said. Installing sensing systems could help lower the number and scale of outages, along with their economic impact.

“If you are continually monitoring your system, it’s like going to get a physical or having a real-time monitor of what your status of health is,” Ohodnicki said. “It’s a lot easier for utilities to be able to diagnose where they think the risks would be once an event has occurred.” 

Tech over a decade in the making 

Electricity demand is rising across the US, driven largely by AI data centers and electrification efforts. At the same time, extreme weather is putting added pressure on the nation’s aging power grid, making blackouts more common.  

These power outages cost the US economy about $150 billion per year, according to the US Department of Energy. 

Sensible Photonics has caught the attention of the federal government to curb that loss. The startup recently secured $1 million across three Department of Energy SBIR grants to improve sensing tech for distribution transformers, grid storage and nuclear waste management.

But this achievement has been over a decade in the making.

Ohodnicki, a Pittsburgh native and graduate of both the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University, worked at the National Energy Technology Laboratory from 2010 to 2020. There, he began developing advanced sensing tools to monitor and support energy systems.

“We got a project supported in the area of transformer sensing, and it was focused on distribution transformers,” Ohodnicki said. “At that time, the industry just wasn’t ready for it. Transformers were cheap, electricity was important, but the demand wasn’t growing as fast as it is today.”

That began to change during the COVID pandemic, when Ohodnicki noticed supply chain disruptions were exposing vulnerabilities in energy infrastructure. Attention was shifting to technologies that could offer more visibility and resilience. 

Now, “the need is very clear,” Ohodnicki said, “we’re in a position to be able to respond to it and scale it.” 

Technical.ly sat down with Ohodnicki and McGregor-Smith at StudioMe in Oakland to learn more about Sensible Photonics, its efforts to make the grid more resilient and what Pittsburgh resources have helped the company grow over the last four years. 

Watch the full interview below.