Our Story

Our vision is to unlock the energy the world needs by enabling a more flexible, reliable and affordable grid.

We help electric utilities to unlock capacity and solve their critical grid issues, using our solutions to create a more flexible, reliable and affordable grid. This enables a faster, more cost-efficient path to meet growing electricity demand with clean energy generation, at lowest cost to consumers.

Our story

The rise of AI, wide-scale electrification, and economic growth are contributing to the rapid increases in electricity demand, at a time when the transition to clean energy is moving much slower than the world needs.

Electric grids must become an enabler of this new energy future, not a barrier. We urgently need to optimize and reinforce existing grids, as well as efficiently developing new infrastructure, to address the growing demand with clean energy at lowest cost for consumers.

At Smart Wires, we help customers quickly unlock extra capacity and solve complex grid issues through our innovative, modular and quick to deploy solutions. This means our customers can dynamically control and optimize the use of their existing grids while being able to deploy and leverage critical new infrastructure faster and more efficiently.

Headquartered in the Research Triangle of North Carolina, we are a team of over 100 passionate and visionary experts across four continents who work every day to transform grids globally. We collaborate closely with our customers to understand their unique needs and seamlessly integrate our innovative solutions into their grids.

In collaboration with our customers and partners, we’ve unlocked over 3.5 Gigawatts capacity—enough to power over 2.5 million homes—supporting the faster integration of clean energy and new demand, enhancing security of supply and delivering cost savings to consumers.

Together, we are reimagining the grid for net zero.

Our history

Northeast blackout

After the 2003 Northeast Blackout – that left millions across North America in the dark for days – a visionary team at Georgia Tech University saw the need for a solution. They developed a smart power flow control concept, allowing grid operators to monitor and adjust power flows across their networks in real time.

2003

Smart Wires established

Smart Wires was born to take the idea into reality. A team of experts began working to further develop and commercialize the Georgia Tech concept into what became our first power flow control devices, PowerLine Guardian® and Power Guardian™.

2010

First pilot project

The first pilot project involved installing PowerLine Guardian® devices on transmission lines in Tennessee to push power off the line on which they were installed. This was followed by multiple projects using these first devices.

2012

First SmartValve pilot project

To better meet our customer’s needs, we developed the first generation of SmartValve™ - an advanced power flow control technology that could push power off overloaded lines and pull power onto underutilized lines. We partnered with EirGrid and ESB Networks in Ireland to deploy the first SmartValves on a transmission grid,.

2016

Transition to SmartValve as core technology

We deployed the second-generation SmartValves with Central Hudson in New York State as part of a pilot project. We refined our SmartValve design based on learnings from this project and extensive R&D efforts, to develop the third generation SmartValve. This SmartValve provided 10 MVAr of power flow control capability, compared to the 1 MVAr of power flow control capability in the second-generation SmartValve.

2019

First large-scale SmartValve deployment

We partnered with National Grid Electricity Transmission—leading transmission owner in the UK—on the installation of SmartValves in the world’s first large-scale use of advanced power flow control, unlocking 1.5 GW of electric capacity for renewables. This collaboration has continued with many additional SmartValve projects underway and planned for the years to come.

2021

Expanded suite of grid enhancing technologies

We added state-of-the-art SUMO software to complement our suite of grid enhancing technologies. By this stage, we had deployed SmartValves in large-scale projects with leading utilities in Europe, the US, Latin America, and Australia.

2022

Large-scale projects across four continents

In collaboration with our customers and partners, we’ve successfully deployed our grid enhancing technologies across four continents. This has unlocked over 3.5 Gigawatts capacity—enough to power over 2.5 million homes—and provided operational flexibility to our customers, supporting the faster integration of clean energy and new demand, enhancing security of supply and delivering cost savings to consumers.

2023

We continue our mission

Today we are the world’s leading grid enhancing technology and services company focused on helping our customers to unlock capacity and solve their critical grid issues, using our solutions to create a more flexible, reliable and affordable grid.