Renewable Energy

Managing the clean energy transition.
Equipping future energy infrastructure with distributed fiber optic sensing provides continuous, long term monitoring. Detecting fatigue, optimizing performance during installation and operation.

Wind and photovoltaic energy transmission

New buried and subsea cables are critical to energy transition.

Distributed sensing gives you insight into the condition of high voltage (HV) and extra high voltage (EHV) underground and subsea cables, both export and inter-array.

Monitoring new power cables

• measures how they respond to increasing loads
• provides input for real-time or dynamic rating systems, which identify limitations in the circuit.

Existing cables’ performance can be surveyed using integral or nearby optical fiber, helping you detect and locate hotspots, and intervene to prevent further loss.

Geothermal energy

Distributed fiber optic sensing monitors ground movement (environment, shrinkage), which might lead to casing rupture in boreholes, reservoirs, and pipelines.
Only distributed fiber optic monitoring provides continuous, real-time data over the life of the asset.

Monitoring detects:

• borehole casing elongation and shortening, creep and other deformation early on- you can respond before damage escalates
• temperature distribution and leaks in district heating pipes.

Hydropower

Structural health monitoring of dams and pump-storage plants is difficult because of their remoteness and size.

Distributed fiber optic sensing is ideal for detecting deformation (strain), seepage, and temperature events in these large structures, continuously and for decades.

Landslides and unstable slopes around artificial water basins and reservoirs may be monitored using distributed fiber optic sensing, alerting the operator to small ground movements. This can be achieved with fiber optic strain sensing cables buried in the soil along the embankments and levees. Vertical inclinometers in boreholes both in earth and concrete-built structures may be instrumented to detect strain.

Concrete curing temperature during construction can be monitored continuously using fiber optic sensing. Construction time is optimized, using data to determine when it is safe to continue to the next stage.

Hydrogen and Carbon Capture and storage

Hydrogen brings new challenges for asset monitoring. Fiber-optic sensing enables you to monitor storage caverns (carbon capture and storage (CCS)) and vessels, transmission pipelines, and production facilities.

Continuous, long-term monitoring giving early detection of deformation and leaks.

Smart cities

Smart cities depend on sensors.
However electronic sensors need power and maintenance. Cameras need line of sight and may compromise privacy.

Distributed fiber optic sensing requires power to the interrogator, not to the sensor, which can monitor a distance of more than 50 km.

The sensor, EMI immune, zero maintenance, can be embedded into structures during or after construction. Monitoring continuously and in real time, fibrisTerre sensing systems detect temperature and strain events early. The authority has time to respond and mitigate events.

PROJECT: Structural testing and monitoring in Singapore’s Deep Tunnel Sewerage System

fibrisTerre systems are ideal for monitoring:

• Sewers and wastewater tunnels and pipes – water ingress and levels, leaks and deformation
• Telecom infrastructures – functional and mechanical state of fiber optic networks, temperature detection in data centers
• Energy distribution infrastructure- power cables condition monitoring, district heating temperature monitoring and * leak detection
• Smart buildings – intrinsic Structural Health Monitoring (SHM), temperature monitoring throughout the building to detect excess heating and cooling
• Transport infrastructure – structural health monitoring for bridges, tunnels, stations, cableways.

Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) video: Shaping Zero: The Big Questions