CuTS
Theft
- Cell phone sites
- Substations
- Industrial complexes
- Commercial complexes
- Domestic dwellings
- Costly downtime
- Safety issues including danger to life
- Replacement material and installation costs
CuTS offers a way of monitoring theft. It works on most metals, so the application doesn’t have to be copper based. For example, CuTS works just as well on steel structures.
Earth Integrity Monitoring
Over time, anything buried in the ground corrodes. If that material is part of an earthing system providing a low impedance path to earth, then problems could arise.
CuTS® offers a way of monitoring the integrity of earthing systems, especially in remote sites. CuTS® can be used to monitor single asset earths on, for instance, a transformer or Earthing on the whole site.
CuTS® technology monitors earthing infrastructure in real time for theft, degradation and failure, providing operating companies with immediate, accurate intelligence on safety risks and service status.
- Protecting staff and public from death and serious injury
- Minimising outage risk and unplanned maintenance
- Reducing consequential damages and other financial loss
- CuTS® – Detecting earthing theft and degradation as it happens
- Integrates with existing security & control infrastructure eg SCADA
- Reports degradation of safety infrastructure
- Proactively anticipate faults/optimise maintenance
- Root cause analysis
- Quick fault resolution
- Reduce operational down time for services
- Meet contractual performance commitments
CuTS® is a scalable solution designed for service environments where safety and continuity are paramount. CuTS® technology monitors earthing infrastructure in real time for theft, degradation and failure providing operating companies with immediate, accurate intelligence on asset status. Enhancing site safety protects staff and public from death and serious injury, minimises outage risk and unplanned maintenance thereby reducing consequential damages and other financial loss.
Typical Applications
- Substation grounding
- Power cables
- Mobile base station grounding
- General site grounding
- Communications site grounding
- Substation grounding
Wires are connected between representative points of the grounding infrastructure and the CuTS® unit. The inductive properties of the monitored infrastructure are then continuously compared to a controlled reference. The CuTS® unit incorporates a unique and highly sensitive patented inductance/impedance change monitoring system. Changes to the monitored grounding infrastructure (such as the theft of metal), induce changes in the measured inductance. On board algorithms apply filters and thresholds to understand the change and effectively manage non-relevant spurious site conditions such as voltages, ground connectivity, fault conditions or electrical discharges. Once analysed, appropriate notifications of the change are communicated.
Configuration is achieved through simple tuning/adjustment at installation via the CuTS® management interface. Notifications are sent to a cloud based interface via an IoT modem, and/or can be incorporated into existing monitoring platforms.
The impact of copper theft
- Theft of copper from substations is common
- It represents serious safety and operational risk
Resultant outage and costs
- Resultant damage to plant is often substantially more costly than the cost of replacing stolen material
- Service outage (loss of service) may result in regulatory and/or compensation costs
- Requires there to be knowledge of the event
- Undetected events are potentially lethal on site
- Undetected events can be a risk to the public at service delivery points
Technology
- Detects damage and physical disconnection of the earthing system (ie theft)
- Detects changes in grounding infrastructure
- System is difficult to circumvent
- High impedance sensor input
- Not susceptible to false alarms
- Easy to install with no disconnections
- Embedded Lightning and Surge Protection
- Alerts operator upon damage, disconnection or other physical change, such as corrosion
- Secure against knowledgeable thieves
- Does not interfere with grounding integrity
- Avoids unnecessary investigation time
- Common deployment procedure across all sites
- No service interruptions to the site
- Ensures minimal failure due to storms and operational surge events
- Low cost compared to 24 hour manned monitoring . . .. . . Thus providing 360° 24 hour all-round monitoring (vs camera systems which require constantly manned monitoring, are susceptible to false alarms, have limited field of vision and might not cover the whole site)
Commercial
- Monitors grounding infrastructure above and below ground, providing unique data
- Accurate location based fault detection
- Permanently installed with very low asset and maintenance costs
- Automated remote monitoring
- Designed for remote or city sites
- Flexible communications options
- Enhances asset and site safety
- Reduces outage time when site compromised
- Reduces engineering fix time and costs
- Low lifetime cost
- Cost reduction through reduced physical inspection
- Minimises costs and maximises operational gain from common deployment
- Provides future proofing for changing technologies communications systems
How it works
- CuTS® monitors metallic infrastructure for change due to cutting, removal, damage or degradation
- CuTS® system looks for changes in the monitored infrastructure inductance characteristics
- The monitored infrastructure is coupled into a sensing circuit via sense wire inputs which detects minor changes (down to below 0.02μH)
- When change occurs beyond the adjustable thresholds, the unit alarm is activated sending secure alerts
- Filter thresholds include extent of change detected and duration of change – this copes with site faults and other events
Client portal
All sites status table
Site map view
Site details
Contact us for a full demonstration of the CuTS Copper Theft Detection & Earthing Integrity Monitoring system.