GreenAmp Pipeline Remote Monitoring- Sleep well knowing that your asset is protected!

When it comes to cathodic protection of critical pipeline infrastructure, information is the key.

Traditional “once a year” test point surveys involve driving vast distances in harsh terrain, delays from extreme weather events, dealing with uncooperative land holders and even the odd angry wildlife from time to time! Often weeks of hard, dangerous work that, in reality, results in a tiny snap shot of the cathodic protection at that one moment in time.

The GreenAmp® remote monitoring system provides a much deeper insight into the state of a pipeline, providing hourly measurements of pipeline protection levels, transmitted once a day to an intuitive online portal or to an asset owners own systems as required.

There are two variants of GreenAmp® the single channel unit and the four plus model:

The GreenAmp® single channel unit is designed for installation in a test point box, recording a reading of pipe potential (cathodic protection level) once every hour and transmitting those 24 readings once per day.

The GreenAmp® 4 Plus unit compliments the single channel units in locations that have sacrificial anode beds, cathodic protection units (CPU’s) or foreign structures. It has the following additional features:

• Four channels of data such as CPU output of Volts, Current, Pipe potential and a foreign structure for interference monitoring purposes.
• Accepts active 4-20mA signals from sensors such as soil moisture meters, A.C. current transducers and other custom applications.
• A contactor output for synchronous switching of CPU or sacrificial systems to generate instant off potentials. Removing the “IR” drop to indicate the true polarised potential (protection level) of the pipe.

All units feature a variety of communication protocols to accommodate many scenarios. Primarily utilising LTE internet of things (IoT) protocols of Cat M1 and Narrow Band IoT (NB IOT), Sigfox, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.

In areas that lack IoT coverage, the Daisy Chain Data (DCD) protocol wirelessly shares data from GreenAmp® to GreenAmp® along a pipeline. Each unit has a range of 5km to the next and can daisy chain up to 10 units, offering 50 km of daisy chain coverage in such areas.

GreenAmp® is also compatible with the latest low earth orbit satellite systems which are specifically designed for IoT applications allowing low-cost, reliable coverage in the most remote locations.

 

Installation of the units is a simple process using existing cables that are in the test point boxes and the units are activated using an external magnetic switch so there is no need to open the IP67 rated case to activate them. The units have visible LED’s which indicate various parameters such as signal strength and network connection status for ease of commissioning the system.

The field replaceable battery offers 5 years operation and for units operating at higher duty cycles a small solar panel can be used to replenish the battery through the Micro C USB built-in charging circuit.

The GreenAmp® portal is our intuitive, web-based interface used to display and configure the data.  The GreenAmp® portal features include:

• Graphs of test point pipe potential data.
• Configurable alarm states (email or SMS) for out-of-range readings.
• Scheduling of synchronous current interruptions with high resolution logging.
• Geographic maps of a pipeline with the ability to interrogate individual points and a range of easily interpreted customisable info graphics.
• A fully documented API allows GreenAmp® data to be seamlessly integrated into existing I.T. systems if required.

There have been a number of other non-pipeline implementations including monitoring of anode systems on marine structures, commercial ships and pontoons for both steel and aluminium structures.