Cambridge-based scientific instrument manufacturer Delta-T Devices is marking its 55th anniversary after securing a series of new contracts and growing annual sales to £5m.
The co-operative, which manufactures scientific instruments and monitoring systems for plant and soil science, commercial horticulture and solar PV, has increased annual sales by £1.5m since 2021. The business has also strengthened its team, appointing experienced department heads and expanding its capabilities at its original home in Burwell, Cambridgeshire.
Delta-T Devices develops sensors and monitoring systems that help researchers, growers and solar-energy professionals collect environmental data and use it to inform decisions. Increasingly, the company is combining research-grade sensors with wireless communications and cloud-based data solutions to provide remote monitoring systems.
The company’s technology is now used in more than 20 countries across five continents, with export markets accounting for around 80% of revenue. The US, China and Europe are among its key markets. Its technology has also been used in space research. The company’s WET Sensor supported experiments to grow lettuce in space, highlighting the origins of technology that is now being applied across commercial markets.
Heidi Hathaway, Chair of Delta-T Devices, said the company’s founding purpose – to make instruments for “socially worthwhile purposes at a reasonable cost” – remained central to its approach.
“While our research heritage remains fundamental to what we do, the business today is focused equally between environmental research, commercial horticulture and solar PV,” she said.
The company is now investing in new product development, with several products due to launch shortly. These include the WET90, a compact multi-parameter sensor designed for commercial growing media, and a Modbus version of the SPN1 Sunshine Pyranometer, designed to simplify integration with modern solar PV monitoring systems.
Delta-T is also preparing to launch Celora, a compact wireless telemetry unit that connects Delta-T and third-party SDI-12 sensors directly to the cloud via 4G. The technology is designed to make it easier to deploy remote monitoring networks without conventional data-logging infrastructure.
Mark Daniels, Head of Sales & Marketing at Delta-T Devices, said the company saw significant potential to apply its expertise in research-grade measurement to larger commercial markets.
“Accurate data matters just as much to a grower managing irrigation or a solar operator monitoring a large PV installation as it does to a scientist conducting research,” he said.
The company is also exploring opportunities in water-use efficiency, soil care, plant health analysis, environmental monitoring, automation and digitalisation.
As part of its anniversary celebrations, Delta-T Devices plans to undertake a major sympathetic restoration of the ‘Tudor Barn’, a late 16th-century building located alongside its modern headquarters. The building will become an integrated part of the company’s HQ.
Hathaway said Delta-T’s co-operative structure had given it the freedom to take a long-term approach to product development and investment.
“55 years in business is some achievement and I like to think our co-operative structure has given us the freedom to make decisions that are accelerating innovations and creating solutions that are changing the way the world works,” she said.
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