An Irish tech firm enables electricity operators to pinpoint breakdowns,

FLYING into Mexico City at night the lights below illuminate everything from the ostentatiously wealthy suburbs to the shantytowns that lie on the edge of the city of 25 million people.

The country's power needs are colossal. Though electricity generation has increased rapidly over the last 10 years, the system is creaking under the strain.

Already, President Vicente Fox estimates that $120 billion worth of investment is needed over the next five years to meet a 45 per cent growth in demand - though the Mexicans fear both higher prices, and privatisation.

Enter a small Irish high-tech company from Dungarvan, Co Waterford, LeT Systems, which has built a reputation over the last decade supplying software to power companies in Britain.

Currently, just two companies control Mexico's electricity market, the Comision Federal de Electricidad (CFE), which is the dominant player, and Luz y Fuerza Centro (LFC), which supplies the capital.

Last year, Luz y Feurza Centro alone lost $2.9 billion in revenue as poorly paid staff illegally connected up homes. The losses from power breakdowns are even higher, although no reliable figures are available.

Regardless of their sophistication, supply breakdowns leave most electricity companies literally in the dark, Mr Paul Ryan, LeT Systems's head of marketing and alliances told The Irish Times.

"If you get a power outage, you are not able to say exactly where the problem has occurred, or what its nature is, or how long it will take to fix it. You will despatch a crew to find out," he said.

However, LeT Systems's eRespond software can cut costs, and time. "We are able to tell them to the exact house, the exact spot where the problem is. That enables the power companies to issue work orders to their crews.

"They know what kind of problem it is before they go out. If it is a problem with a pole, they will need one type of equipment. If it is a transmitter, it needs something else.

"And we can tell them all that in real time," said Mr Ryan, one of more than 20 Irish businesspeople who accompanied the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, to Mexico last week on a trade mission.

Today, LeT Systems's software is used by 60 per cent of all UK power companies, including Scottish Power, East Midlands Electricity, Scottish and Southern Energy, Southern Electric, and both 24 7 and London Electricity in London.

Driven by deregulation, the UK is the test-bed for elsewhere.

Set up in 1992 by a Dungarvan native, Mr Jim Hyland, who had worked as an information technology consultant with UK power firms, LeT Systems won its first UK deal six years ago.

Backed by two rounds of venture capital, including money from Siemens, LeT now employs 54 people in Dungarvan, Glasgow and in the US, where the company is working with Duquesne Light and Power, in Philadelphia.

Worth $4 million, the Duquesne contract is central to future growth. "We have had people there for 18 months. That was our first entry into the US market," said Mr Ryan in Mexico City.

"We would be bringing Duquesne on about 10 years. They would have a manual, paper-based system up to now," said Mr Ryan .

"The great thing about this is that it is set up on a web browser. You can share information with as many people as require it," he said.

The need for some remote control will become more acute in future as the electricity industry consolidates. "In a few years' time, there may only be four or five major EU distributors."

In the meantime, LeT has just secured a deal with a company supplying electricity to Johannesburg and is striving to win contracts in eastern and central Europe.