The MICATU Groundless Sensor Story

Purposefully designed for specialty applications, Groundless Optical Sensors represent a transformative solution that propels the electric utility industry into a new era of reliability, efficiency, and safety. With their advanced features and benefits, these sensors empower utilities to proactively manage their electrical infrastructure, reduce downtime, optimize performance, and enhance worker safety. Ideal for use in applications where directly mounting the sensor either to pad-mount equipment, to cabinets, or within enclosures, depending upon model these sensors use industry-standard bolt-circles or directly mount to the busbar via side tabs, nylon bolts, and nylon wingnuts.

Designed in collaboration with a utility partner when they needed a future-forward replacement for neon-filament voltage indicators, the ONC125 exclusively available from MICATU elegantly solved all of their requirements. The new unit needed to be reliable, work with 4kV Unit-Substation feeders, and ideally could be installed without taking the unit offline. In short, it had to work well with the most demanding grid in the country.

Building on their wealth of experience in optical sensing, the MICATU team delivered something extraordinary. Not only did the ONC125 provide exceptional accuracy in a 2-pound, non-conductive housing, the entire solution could be installed without making contact with the current itself — or even without access to an external ground!

With its modular design and capacity to handle multiple voltage classes, this utility was able to deploy the ONC125 sensors rapidly. Their teams were able to reliably determine voltage without even accessing the compartment, thanks to the sensor’s integration with the m410B Optical Signal Processor.

"Although originally envisioned for one specific use case, we quickly realized how transformative a contact-free, groundless voltage sensor is. And the opportunity this opens up for the integrated grid… well, it’s a game changer."