Canadian Utility BC Hydro is the Master of all it surveils with a remote video system

Apr 1, 1998 12:00 PM, AC&SSI Staff

BC Hydro is one of Canada's largest hydro-electric utilities, generating, transmitting and selling power to customers in the West Coast province of British Columbia.

The sheer size and grandeur of British Columbia's geography creates special problems for a power company. Not only must BC Hydro deliver reliable, affordable power to the province's major population centers in Vancouver and Victoria, its reach must also extend to remote mountain, sub-arctic and coastal communities.

To better service its communities, BC Hydro has constructed upwards of 70 remote hydro stations, some centered around major cities, others scattered across the far reaches of the province. These remote hydro stations pose special problems in that they house valuable equipment and materials, and yet stand unoccupied during nights and weekends, making them potential targets of theft, vandalism, and perhaps even sabotage.

One particularly troublesome object of theft is the copper wire that lies buried within the perimeters of the remote stations, and which provides grounding for high-voltage electrical currents.

"In one station on Vancouver Island, thieves were actually tearing up the grounding grid and selling it for scrap copper," relates BC Hydro area security investigator Paul Rowat. "Some of these people were skillful enough to dig up the grounding grid and put back the gravel surface, so no one would realize the copper was missing. This, needless to say, exposes employees to extreme danger in the event of an electrical fault."

Chasing the wind - or not

Responding to the potential for security breaches, BC Hydro has for years employed motion detectors and intrusion alarms at its remote sites, monitored by the company's central security office, but they were subject to false alarms -triggered by encroaching wildlife, fallen trees, unwitting employees, or simply malfunctioning equipment.

Because the alarm system did not differentiate between legitimate security breaches and accidental or incidental triggers, guards had to be dispatched every time an alarm sounded. It was an inefficient use of manpower and resources.

In 1995, the company decided to implement a video security system that could provide BC Hydro with a round-the-clock view of its remote sites. The company opted for a joint solution from Newbridge Networks, Kanata, Ontario, and Newbridge affiliate Telexis Corp., Ottawa, Ontario.

BC Hydro embarked on a trial project, equipping two of its remote stations with the Newbridge 2611 MainStreet Video Termination Unit, which digitizes and transmits video signals from as many as four cameras. Seven additional sites were equipped with Telexis VTU-A units capable of transmitting video signals over standard telephone lines.

>From the remote sites, the digitized video signals would be transported across BC Hydro's existing T1 network - built with the Newbridge 3600 MainStreet Bandwidth Manager - and fed into a central security office equipped with the Telexis ViaNet video management system (VMS). The ViaNet VMS would recombine the digital signals and display them as near-live video on a computer screen. Each VMS unit can monitor up to 16 sites.

To catch a thief

With the surveillance system installed, BC Hydro for the first time had an efficient way to monitor its remote sites. Now whenever an alarm sounded, video images of the facility's perimeter fences, grounds and buildings would be automatically transmitted to the central monitoring station, where security officers would be able to assess the nature of the breach. Environmental causes could then be discounted, whereas they had previously required a physical site inspection, entailing round trips of 30 miles or more.

"The most important benefit of the new video management system is that we can make a more informed decision as to whether to respond to an alarm," Rowat says. "If we see a deer in the yard, there is no great hurry to get out there."

In the event of a bona fide security breach, the system has several built-in features that optimize the effectiveness of remote monitoring, such as capturing intruders on video - before the alarm sounds.

"The minute or two prior to the alarm sounding often provides the most important evidence," Rowat notes. "If we see a guy running through the yard, we know we have a valid alarm.

"What you receive at the monitoring station, is a few frames of video prior to the alarm. After that, the system catches up to real time," he explains.

Another feature of the system is two-way transmission lines. Security officers at the central monitoring station can actively communicate with the remote sites, using the same T1 network and equipment that delivers the video signals.

Remote loudspeakers have been added to the system, allowing guards at the central monitoring station to talk to people at surveillance sites, whether employees, security personnel or intruders.

"We have not had any attacks on sites where cameras have been installed," adds Rowat. "Clearly displayed cameras act as a deterrent to would-be trespassers, and we have greatly reduced incidents of theft."

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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