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Projects: Projects for Investigator
Reference Number	NIA_SPEN0004
Title	Substation Earth Monitor
Status	Completed
Energy Categories	Other Power and Storage Technologies(Electricity transmission and distribution) 100%;
Research Types	Applied Research and Development 100%
Science and Technology Fields	SOCIAL SCIENCES (Business and Management Studies) 20%; ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Electrical and Electronic Engineering) 80%;
UKERC Cross Cutting Characterisation	Not Cross-cutting 100%
Principal Investigator	Project Contact No email address given SP Energy Networks
Award Type	Network Innovation Allowance
Funding Source	Ofgem
Start Date	01 April 2015
End Date	01 April 2016
Duration	12 months
Total Grant Value	£350,000
Industrial Sectors	Power
Region	Scotland
Programme	Network Innovation Allowance
Investigators	Principal Investigator	Project Contact , SP Energy Networks (100.000%)
Web Site	http://www.smarternetworks.org/project/NIA_SPEN0004
Objectives	The objectives for the project include: The successful installation of a number of monitors to establish confidence that they can detect and report incidences of copper theft and tampering, at a range of substation and environments Evaluate the effectiveness of the monitors at both detecting and preventing the incidences of copper theft at substation locations. Develop a understanding of the potential benefits that could be achieve via a wide scale roll out Ensuring the monitors are suitable in multiple locations/environments and can be installed with minimal impact on the distribution network Ensuring the monitors have the ability to be integrated into existing security systems or into Scalability to immediately provide notification that infrastructure is being removed / tampered and accurately record times of such events The following success criteria have been established The successful and reliable detection of copper theft and tampering at key substation locations either through test simulations or actual events. Low incidences of mal-operation and spurious alarms Quantifying the benefits associated with detecting when key earth infrastructure is removed or tampered with Integrate the solution into BaU
Abstract	Recent legislative changes to increase regulation of the scrap metal industry and eliminate cash payments have had some success in reducing the number of metal thefts. However, theft of copper earthing systems remains a serious safety risk for engineers, customers and metal thieves as well as an operational performance risk for electrical networks. While marking technologies help identify cable theft when the thieves or receivers are caught, preventing theft in the first place remains a desirable target. On larger sites, security can be improved by technologies detecting trespass but there are many smaller sites where this approach is cost prohibitive. Such detection does not address the issue of what is happening on site upon such intrusion. The ideal solution is a low-cost method of detecting tampering with the earthing system itself. SPEN has been working with our project partners to develop a novel method of reliably detecting the cutting and removal of sections of the key metallic infrastructure. Following the successful product development and subsequent field testing during IFI1209 Substation Earth Integrity Monitoring project, a large trial deployment is proposed to further develop the CuTS copper theft device into BaU. The scale of the project will have to be large enough to allow for further product and technology development at a range of secondary, primary and grid sites. The pilot rollout will evaluate and assess the functionality of the monitor in typical substation environments to reliably detect and report incidences of copper theft.Note : Project Documents may be available via the ENA Smarter Networks Portal using the Website link above
Publications	(none)
Final Report	(none)
Added to Database	14/12/18