Kalkitech: Delivering Smart Grid Technology Globally

The global surge in electricity consumption has created a dire need for smart, adaptive power grids. One company committed to providing smart grid technology solutions is Kalkitech.

Founded in 1998, the company has developed a prolific technology portfolio of products for power generation, transmission and distribution. Kalkitech’s smart grid technology allows power companies to bridge the data communications gap between legacy and smart power utility field devices and head-end systems.

Kalkitech also helps utilities improve system reliability and operational efficiency while extending the life of legacy SCADA systems. This is achieved by transforming and accelerating secure access to real-time and historical data.

The company’s acquisition of Applied Systems Engineering (ASE) in 2015 added market-leading substation and distribution utility communications protocol testing products to its product portfolio.

Aiding Global Transformation 

Kalkitech helps energy and utility companies across the globe improve energy efficiency by providing standards-based technology products and solutions in Substation Automation, Distribution Automation, Advanced Metering, Wide Area Monitoring, Power Plant Optimization and energy IoT management.

The company’s services include consulting, protocol implementation, training, testing and validation. It educates utilities, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and System Integrators on its own as well as industry standard smart grid technologies and their deployment. It invests extensively in research and development, collaborates with leading utilities, and partners with regional leaders across the globe to provide industry-leading technology solutions to customers in over 70 countries.

Kalkitech assists its customers to reduce time-to-market and save on R&D time and costs by integrating technological innovations and emerging communication standards into their existing products; thus helping in extending their product’s reach and application scope. Kalkitech has been enabling utilities to transform and automate operations. The company understands that during the evolution of an end-to-end smart grid, legacy systems will have to coexist and integrate with new technologies.

Thus, it designs its solutions to aid in intelligent utility transformation by supporting legacy and standards-based technologies and bridging the communication gap. In taking this approach, Kalkitech is well positioned to meet the utility needs both of today and of the future.

A Power-Charged Leader 

Kalkitech’s strategic direction is dictated by Prasanth Gopalakrishnan who is the President, CEO and Founder of the company.

He is a member of the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) LITD 10 and has participated in the development of the IEC 62056 standard.

Prasanth founded the company with the vision to create an industry leader in energy optimization and standards based communications. To achieve this, he brought together a team of professionals who possessed both a strong technical foundation and had extensive utility industry experience.

“A key element of the company’s success is its commitment to product quality and customer service, which have helped to build the company’s reputation,” says Prasanth.

Providing Cutting-Edge Technology 

Kalkitech offers top-notch customized technology services to the energy and utility industries. Its services group helps utilities keep pace with modernization projects and offer the adaptability to support new and emerging industry trends. Among its most marketing-leading products and services are:

• A Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition protocol conversion engine which consolidates and translates data from more than 80 vendor-specific and standards based protocols that simplify management of grid assets and accelerate problem solving. This technology is offered as a substation data concentrator as well as an embedded solution for OEMs to integrate into their utility products.
• Protocol test tools used by automation engineers to configure, analyze, test and simulate more than 70 serial and network SCADA protocols, simplifying problem solving and reporting.
• Metering-related technology: a field-proven DLMS source code library available to meter vendors to conform to the standard for communications, and a standards based low-power radio frequency wireless mesh communications network for smart meter vendors to connect their meters to a head-end system.
• A secure, automated fault record collection and remote configuration system for relays and other substation Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs).
• Power dispatch optimization software for power transmission, generation and distribution.
• Power plant optimization, diagnostics and analytics software.

Kalkitech also offers consultation services to assist customers in integrating its technology as well as customizing them for specific requirements.

The support department comprises a strong technical team of trained and experienced individuals. Using a welldefined, multi-tiered support structure, customer inquiries are reviewed and addressed in a timely fashion via email or phone.

With support teams in multiple locations around the world, Kalkitech is able to accelerate its response to customer questions and issues.

The Zenith of Innovation 

The latest innovation from Kalkitech is a solution to help utilities and industries of all sizes manage the massive volume of data generated by intelligent devices installed across their coverage area.

Data is only useful if one can do something with it; Kalkitech has leveraged its expertise in protocol translation and data concentration to develop an IoT platform, kalki.io, optimized specifically for the energy market.

Kalki.io collects utility asset data and offers core device management services like configuration, software updates, access control, alerts, and health monitoring. It simplifies the addition of third party and customized applications for secure data access from advanced analytical applications, predictive equipment maintenance, and management of distributed energy power