NEWSDESK
New £4m camera contract helps manage flood and coastal risk
Following a competitive tendering process,Meteor Communications has been awarded a four-year contract by the Environment Agency to significantly expand their estate of low-power remote image collection cameras. Installed at strategic locations, the cameras will provide critically important information on the status of watermanagement assets involved in reducing flood and coastal risk.
Under the contract,Meteor will provide the Agency with hourly images of remote assets such as grilles, screens, storm overflows, channels, culverts, pumps, gates and automated structures. The images will be captured byMeteor’s remote cameras (MRC) and delivered to Agency staff via the company’s web-basedMeteorCloud service.
This award builds on previous contracts under whichMeteor has installed around 1,500 remote cameras for the Environment Agency. Images fromtheMRC cameras provide Agency staff with an early warning of potentially harmful or dangerous conditions. For example, the immediate visual confirmation of rising water levels in stormdrains or blocked trash screens allows a rapid and timely response. Equally, for assetmanagement regular real-time images fromsite reduces the number of site visits, saving time andmoney. It has
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been estimated that by avoiding unnecessary journeys, eachMRC camera saves around 0.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, and each camera’s financial payback is just 9 to 10months.
Explaining the particular advantages of the MRC cameras,Meteor’sManaging Director Matt Dibbs says: “Ourmain focus in the development of these cameras was the ability to operate unattended in remote locations where normal power and communicationsmay not be available. The MRC cameras therefore operate on ultra- low power, requiring just a small battery and a solar panel for year-round operation, anywhere in the UK. This dramatically reduces installation time and cost.
“Transmitting single high-resolution images, the cameras are able to operate via anymobile network connection. This means that high-quality, real-time images can be provided even in areas with poor mobile coverage, and with an extremely robust design, they are suitable for long term, unattended operation withminimal maintenance.”
In addition to the scheduled images, users are able to request additional pictures via theMeteorCloud® web portal, directly by SMS or email. This includes requests for an enhanced (faster) pollingmode for a set period of time, which can also be prompted automatically – by a connected
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water level sensor for example. Thismeans that rising water levels can cause the camera to raise an alarmwith an accompanying image to provide visual confirmation of conditions.
To ensure that the systemis resilient and futureproof,Meteor also provides full integration of theMRC camera system(via theMeteor Data Centre) into the Environment Agency’s current SCADA platforms and future visualisation systems.
Andrew Pearce, the Environment Agency’s deputy director for assetmanagement systems, said: “Our new flood defences have already better protected 314,000 homes since 2015 and we’re going further, delivering a record £5.2bn investment to protect hundreds of thousandsmore properties.
“Working withMeteor Communications and these new remote cameras will help us tomaintain defences to ensure communities remain protected, as well as savemoney, improve efficiencies and lower the carbon footprint of our operations.”
Meteor Communications currently has around 2,500MRC cameras operational in the UK.
MRC camera systems are in use across the Water Utilities sector, Local Authorities and Network Rail for remote operational and assetmanagement purposes.
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