Inside Laki Power's EIC Accelerator Project on Power Line Monitors

High-voltage lines carry enormous amounts of energy, yet the cameras and sensors that grid operators hang near them usually run on solar panels, batteries or diesel generators, because the voltage is too high to tap. Laki Power, a small company in Reykjavík, builds a box that clamps onto the conductor and draws its power from the magnetic field around it. The European Commission selected its PowerGRAB project in the October 2020 cut-off of the EIC Accelerator pilot, as a grant-only award and with Laki Power as the project's only beneficiary. According to CORDIS, the EU contributed €2,061,603.25 to a €2,968,870 project that ran from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2023.

Six years after the selection the company is still operating and has just closed its largest round. On 17 September 2026 it announced a €6 million Series A led by the NATO Innovation Fund, the fund's first investment in Iceland, with existing shareholder ReykVC taking part, according to the company's press release and Tech Funding News. The same report says the start-up "has eight members".

A Grant-Funded Pilot Company Turned NATO Portfolio Firm

The Icelandic company register at Skatturinn lists Laki Power ehf. as a live company at Vatnagörðum 14 in Reykjavík, with no insolvency recorded and annual accounts filed for every year from 2014 to 2025; the 2025 accounts were filed on 4 August 2026. New articles of association were registered on 15 September 2026, two days before the Series A was announced. The register shows that the accounts exist but does not publish their figures free of charge, so revenue, losses, equity and staff numbers from the filings could not be checked for this article. A data aggregator's estimate of 21 to 50 employees conflicts with the eight people the company gave Tech Funding News; the company's own figure is used here.

The founding story differs between sources. CORDIS and Tech Funding News say Laki Power was founded in 2015; the register shows the company was registered in August 2014 under another name and filed its first accounts as Laki ehf. for 2015. Tech Funding News names Óskar Valtýsson, a former employee of Iceland's grid operator, and Ósvaldur Knudsen as co-founders. In 2019 the company was led by Sigurjón Magnússon, whom Northstack called the "founding CEO" when he handed the job to Björgvin Sigurðsson, a former Landsvirkjun executive, in November 2020. By November 2022 Knudsen was chief executive, according to Open Access Government, and he signs the 2026 press release as CEO.

How a Box on a Wire Powers Itself

An alternating current in a conductor produces a changing magnetic field around it. Inductive harvesters capture some of that energy, but conventional ones deliver only a few watts, enough for a simple sensor and not for cameras or computers. Laki Power says its patented PowerGRAB harvester uses a "cold" power regulation technique and produces "100x greater efficiency than other on-market solutions", according to the project's final report on CORDIS. Its 2026 press release puts the output at up to 300W. No independent measurement of either figure was found; both come from the company. CORDIS cites US patent 10,622,838, and its results page lists two patent applications filed in 2017 and 2018 and an Icelandic trademark for PowerGRAB filed on 30 October 2019.

That power runs the LKX-MULTI station. The company's launch announcement of February 2024 describes it as carrying 4K cameras, weather and ultrasonic wind sensors, sensors for vibration, salinity and current, and onboard computing for alerts and dynamic line rating, a method of calculating how much current a line can safely carry under actual weather instead of fixed worst-case assumptions. Teltonika, which supplies the station's cellular router, describes a set-up with a four-camera system, edge computing and Starlink as the main data link, built for temperatures below -40 °C. In 2022 Climate and Capital Media reported a unit price of about $25,000 and an installation time of about 15 minutes.

The alternatives are monitoring stations on towers with their own solar or diesel supply, helicopter and drone patrols, or small line sensors that harvest little power. Tech Funding News names LineVision, which sells optical line sensors, and Gridware, which puts sensors on utility poles, as competitors. Knudsen told the outlet: "We are really second to none; there is no competitor that can do it the way we do." No independent comparison of the products was found.

What the EIC Grant Paid For

When it applied, Laki Power already had stations on live lines. The CORDIS objective says two prototypes were running on Icelandic lines with Landsnet and one in Norway with Statnett, and that the strategy was to "become a provider of full-service surveillance systems". The dates of those first installations differ by source: Landsnet's team leader for overhead lines wrote in POWER that the pilot launched in 2018, the company's own case study says two stations were deployed in 2019, and Statnett's senior engineer dates the Norwegian pilot to 2020 in T&D World.

The final report lists three milestones. The first was pilot programmes with at least five transmission system operators: it names Landsnet in Iceland, Statnett in Norway, TEİAŞ in Turkey, IPTO in Greece and Manitoba Hydro in Canada, and says the pilots "started later than anticipated" but each "proved successful". Open Access Government reported in November 2022 that the Greek wildfire pilot and the Turkish and Canadian pilots began in April and May 2022, a year into the two-year project. The second milestone was system optimisation: a redesigned cooling system for hot climates, a stronger de-icing system, current measurement, more computing power for AI-based icing detection and a modular design. The third was attendance at five industry conferences. The project ended on its scheduled date of 31 March 2023.

1. Pilots with at least 5 grid operatorsDeliveredFive named in the final report; Greek, Turkish and Canadian pilots confirmed by Open Access Government, started late.
2. Optimised station for hot and icy climatesDeliveredLKX-MULTI launched in February 2024 and deployed in Norway, Turkey, Greece and Iceland, per the company.
3. Full-service surveillance providerDeliveredStatnett bought several units after its pilot, per Statnett in T&D World.
4. 100 times more harvested power than rivalsUnverifiedCompany claim only; no independent test found.

The wildfire pilot in Greece did not meet a real fire. The company's case study says "no wildfires were detected within the proximity of the stations installed", and that the system showed it could sense heat anomalies within a few kilometres. The Turkish pilot recorded "numerous icing events", the company's TEİAŞ case study says. Neither IPTO nor TEİAŞ has published its own assessment that could be found.

Customers After the Grant

The strongest evidence of commercial use comes from the grid operators themselves. Statnett's Arild Berstad wrote in T&D World in March 2025 that the Ålvik Mountain station, about 1,000 metres above sea level, had flagged galloping conductors and possible conductor damage, and that helicopter de-icing, which used to mean three to four sorties each winter, is now limited to fly-ready weather. The pilot "exceeded initial expectations", he wrote, and Statnett decided to purchase several units; the number is not given. In POWER, Landsnet's Thorarinn Bjarnason reported 99.9% uptime at temperatures down to -30 °C, operation through gusts of up to 65 m/s, and a new dynamic line rating project with Laki Power after seven years of working together. Both articles were written by utility engineers, not by the company.

Other customers rest on the company's word. It announced a deployment with Hydro-Québec in June 2025 and its first Starlink-connected station in March 2025, and says it works with operators in Europe, North America, South America and Australia. Hydro-Québec has not confirmed the deployment in a source that could be found, and the number of stations in service and the company's revenue are not public.

The Money

Laki Power raised a seed round led by Brunnur Ventures in October 2019, after earlier grants from Iceland's Technology Development Fund, according to Northstack, and a growth round led by Brunnur with Silfurberg in November 2020; neither amount was disclosed. Tech.eu records a round of €2,755,833 in August 2023, and VCBacked lists $3.0 million for the same month, naming Brunnur Ventures and the Icelandic fund Eyrir Vöxtur among the investors. The 2026 press release says ReykVC "first invested in Laki Power in 2023". The company itself has not published the 2023 amount.

The Series A is aimed at manufacturing and a drone line. The press release says the money will "scale manufacturing", expand LKX-MULTI deployments and speed up the LKX-DRONE, a station on the line where drones can recharge. Laki Power is not in the EIC Fund portfolio: none of the 319 companies on its 16 pages is Laki Power, as expected for a grant-only award.

Why It Matters for Europe's Grids

The European Commission's Action Plan for Grids of 28 November 2023 estimates that €584 billion of grid investment is needed this decade, says grids must become "digital, monitored in real-time, remotely controllable and cybersecure", and names dynamic line rating among the technologies that can get more out of existing lines. RTÉ reported the same €584 billion figure and a 60% rise in EU power demand expected by 2030. Laki Power's stations address both points: line monitoring in places without power or roads, and the weather data that dynamic line rating needs.

The NATO Innovation Fund's backing adds a security angle. Its partner Sander Verbrugge said in the press release that energy grids are "targeted deliberately in Ukraine" and that Laki Power's technology "turns the grid itself into a network of powered stations". The December 2019 storm that Landsnet describes, in which 40 towers failed in northern Iceland at an estimated outage cost of $40 million, shows the weather risk that the first stations were installed to watch.

The Verdict

Laki Power, the EIC and the grid operators named here were not asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.