Watt Are You Doing? - Episode 1 - Meet our Head of R&D!

Fonroche Lighting is launching a new interactive programme called Watt Are You Doing? The idea is to take you round the various parts of the company, meet some of the people who work there and hear what they do. Check out the first episode, when we meet Thomas Schuler, Head of R&D (research and development).

R&D at Fonroche – who are they?

The R&D department at Fonroche Lighting

As we move into 2019, the R&D department, managed by Thomas Schuler, has a team of 10 people. The team has expanded in recent months, and there are job vacancies yet to be filled. Their day-to-day work involves:

• Developing
  products to expand our solar streetlight ranges with clever new solutions and
  related services.
• Innovating
  to keep us at the technological forefront and enable us to deliver products
  with ever higher performance.
• Satisfying
  our customers by meeting their need for world-class solar public lighting. To
  do this, each component needs to be tailored to the specifics of each project
  and geographic location.

They’re also in charge of lighting here at our facility in France, especially when we need light to make videos 😊

The R&D department’s most iconic project

In 2015, the R&D teams flew out to the Middle East to install off-grid solar streetlights at Kuwait International Airport. It was the first project to use our proprietary Power365 technology. Thomas explains that these batteries had to be reprogrammed to withstand temperatures in excess of 50°C. He has great memories of this bespoke project.

After four years in operation, our solution continues to perform optimally - testimony to the dependability and robustness of Fonroche technology. And it’s a resounding success for R&D!

Things move fast at Fonroche

The benefits of working for Fonroche Lighting

Fonroche
Lighting is a small but agile and rapidly expanding company. No need to wait
for the go-ahead from three levels of management before you launch into a
project. “It’s one of our real strengths as a young company,” says Thomas.