Monitor this situation01 October 2006

Yorkshire Water (YW) has 4.7 million customers - a lot of people to let down, if a piece of equipment fails. OFWAT ranks YW as 'the most capital-efficient company'. At YW, therefore, monitoring of the equipment that is used so extensively, and supplying so many people, needs to be taken seriously.

"We have a £16.4m capital programme over five years and 6% of it is on telemetry - something we expect to grow," says Martin Tillotson, manager of R&D for YW.
One way this is growing is through working with Perpetuum, using new energy harvesting technology to power wireless vibration and heat sensors. This project is entering the final phase of evaluation at YW's Esholt facility near Leeds.

Perpetuum is a spin-out company from Southampton University. In partnership with RLW of the US, it is about to launch into volume production of wireless condition monitoring sensors. These, says chief executive Roy Freeland, are powered by "the world's first practical vibration energy harvesting technology, a breakthrough, an enabling technology". The power generated is enough to transmit not just a few bits of data, but, says Freeland, "a large amount, 6kbytes of vibration data every few minutes, and temperature data every few seconds, if required". Moreover, the technology will work on the "billions of AC motors and pieces of equipment worldwide" he adds.

At Esholt, the sensors have been placed on equipment in the incinerator plant. "We looked at various sites; this one is quite a challenge, in terms of radio transmission," adds Freeland. The units use digital radio transmission protocol IEEE 804.15.4 - this location really is challenging, with walls, walkways and pipework as well as the 100 or so items of rotating equipment providing interference. But it has worked, with no need for repeaters in the system. Transmission range at present is 100-150m in free space, but even in this environment it is easily transmitting 25-50m to the control room. "If we can transmit vibration data here, we can do anything," states Freeland.

A major advantage of this technology is to be found in the cost benefit. Peter Boruszenko, a senior R&D engineer for YW, explains: "The cost of hard wiring in monitoring equipment is a prohibiting factor. It would cost between £500 and £1,000 per installation to wire in, on top of the device cost." In ATEX environments, this can be much higher. Perpetuum's sensor costs "under $500 when we are supplying in volume", says Freeland. Volume is expected by mid 2007.

It is also easy to fit - although using magnets to secure the devices in the trials, fitted using a stud, is proposed for final installations. "This retrofit capability is another real benefit," says Boruszenko. Remote assets can also use the sensors, where hard wiring would be not only costly, but impractical. The sensors, it must be remembered, have no batteries or external power supply. They are highly reliable, flexible and maintenance free. The next big thing may well have arrived.

SOE

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