The infiniRel team headed by Founder & CEO Bert Wank, of Capitola, has developed a patented monitor and control system for critical electronics at utility-scale solar power plants, which helps solar plant operators to dramatically reduce unexpected maintenance costs. Unlike traditional monitoring solutions, infiniRel’s inverter health scanning technology enables timely intervention through predictive corrective maintenance and works similar to an EKG predicting heart failure.

In July, infiniRel has won a prized award from the U.S. Department of Energy to further develop and test its technology with Sandia National Laboratories and submit their prototypes this fall to the final stage of the American Made Solar Challenge and a chance to win the grand prize of $500,000 in cash and an additional $75,000 in vouchers. At that time infiniRel plans to have multiple prototypes in the field with paying customers to validate the power of data with its proprietary instrumentation fueling powerful Machine Learning (A.I.) algorithms. “infiniRel significantly reduces expenses for solar operations and maintenance (O&M) teams, that solar asset managers have not budgeted for, but are absolutely necessary to keep solar power plants delivering clean energy they promised”, says Bert Wank, who hails from Germany and defined the world’s first Lithium Ion safety chip as one of the 14 power product lines he launched prior to switching from semiconductors to solar. After the boom and bust of many solar stake holders, the recent growth of solar has become ripe for a game-changing approach to make renewable energy more reliable and more affordable. Bert continues with his strategy “Solar serves as our trim-tab, our proving ground for larger emerging markets in battery energy storage and e-mobility. Autonomous electric vehicles on the road and in the sky, such heavy-lift drones and air taxis, all rely on safe and reliable power electronics”.

infiniRel brings together veterans from the semiconductor, telecom, automotive and solar industries, most recently joined by Ronnie Pettersson, of San Jose, as their Advisor in IoT, and formerly Group Vice President responsible for ABB’s cloud and edge platform. The team has recently won the first prize in the Venture Division of the 2020 Startup Challenge Monterey Bay and is supported by the Tech Futures Group.