In general, the energy industry is more exposed to risks and hazards than other industries. In places such as solar farms and substations, equipment and machinery are prone to failure without proper monitoring. At the same time, hidden dangers such as aging electrical equipment and irregular operation may increase the risk of fire and other accidents. This not only causes huge losses but also threatens the safety of personnel. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance for energy companies to ensure that all equipment is well maintained and employees are safe on their premises. Fortunately, a solar power plant has set up a strong security perimeter of its park using Dahua’s thermal imaging solution, ensuring safe and orderly production.
Challenges
The solar plant was subject to theft of cables, panels and other vandalism, resulting in property and financial damage. What was worse, plant downtime due to theft cost up to $300 an hour, which also added to insurance costs for the following year. For this reason, the client needed an intelligent monitoring system with a limited budget. Cameras are planned to be installed at a distance of 200 meters to reduce the number of cameras required to help the customer save on cost. However, traditional network transmission devices can only cover 100 meters, and using more switches will increase the costs. Therefore, professional switches with longer transmission distances are required.
Solution
In collaboration with alarm.direct GmbH, a German company active for more than 11 years in the solar farm security sector, Dahua constructed a stable security system with thermal cameras detecting intrusions and combining PTZ cameras for auto-tracking. The solar park’s 6 km perimeter is now covered with 44 thermal and 12 PTZ cameras. Dahua thermal cameras featuring long-distance monitoring, based on a self-developed deep learning algorithm, can easily identify humans or vehicles from afar to ensure the safety of the perimeter and area. The thermal cameras used in this project can detect specific individuals or objects of interest as far as 250 meters away. After integrating with the third-party algorithms of Dahua ECO partners, the detection distance has increased to 350 m. In addition, it has the ability to penetrate fog, haze, or other harsh environments, to offer highly accurate and clear images in energy fields.
One crucial role of thermal cameras is fire detection and alarm. Dahua thermal cameras monitor the temperature of key points in the solar park. It provides all-weather online temperature measurement and fast temperature measurement, which can help discover issues in time and save manpower. Once overheating and abnormal temperature is detected, it will alert the operator to pay attention and check, thus preventing fire hazards.
Intelligent analytics technology such as tripwire, intrusion, and auto-tracking was used to strengthen perimeter security. If a potential intruder triggers the IVS rule or an intrusion is detected, such as climbing over the fence, the system will immediately sound an alarm. Or suppose a vehicle enters a restricted area set by the user. In that case, the system will automatically activate the PTZ camera to continuously track the vehicle via pan/tilt rotation and zoom. Equipped with Starlight technology, it records clear images even at night.
Power supply and data transmission are often severe challenges for some energy industry scenarios. To solve the transmission issue, the Dahua Hardened/Industrial switch stood out for reliable long-distance data transmission. Compared with traditional switches, the Dahua Hardened/Industrial switch provides high lightning protection and wide working temperature for industrial networking applications, such as power/utility, oil/gas/mining, factory automation, security surveillance within transportation, ITS and any other outdoor or harsh environments. One Dahua industrial switch manages up to 30 access switches in 6 different rings to connect 250 cameras, reducing hardware quantity and thus saving unnecessary wiring and labor costs. Considering the high data rate and jumbo frame (I frame), the Dahua switch adopts larger buffer memory than a normal switch to improve concurrent processing performance. Moreover, Flow Control is another feature that can make video transmission smooth and stable.
All equipment at different monitoring positions is connected and integrated to the video wall of the control center, allowing security personnel to monitor remotely. In terms of storage, the solution supports redundant records and automatic backup. It restores 2 NVRs as redundant cluster storage by adding NAS.
Result
The solution covers the vast area of the solar park, preventing any possible theft in the vicinity with 24/7 monitoring. The detection and transmission distance are significantly increased, saving the customer 30%-40% of total costs.