How to Be Safe with Wireless Fire & Gas Detection - A Talk with Adne Baer-Olsen of Gassecure, a Draeger AG Company

How to Be Safe with Wireless Fire & Gas Detection - A Talk with Adne Baer-Olsen of Gassecure, a Draeger AG Company

In this discussion we examine the needs and requirements of wireless fire and gas detection in a variety of domains. We discuss industry challenges and how to surmount them. Lastly we take a look into the future in order to see where the technology - and the market is heading.

Our guest:

Adne Baer-Olsen is responsible for leading the wireless solution center of excellence at Gassecure.  He supports global initiatives for wireless safety projects and applications and  works closely with end users and Team Draeger to develop new solutions in cooperation with the R&D team. He invites users to GasSecure's extensive test center wher you can do comprehensive cross technology testing - feel free to contact him for proof of concept work shops also!

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Transcript

ARC Advisory Introduction: 0:00

Broadcasting from Boston, Massachusetts the Smart Cities podcast is the only podcast dedicated to all things smart cities. The podcast is the creation of aarC advisory group Smart City practice. aarC advises leading companies, municipalities and governments on technology trends and market dynamics that affect their business and quality of life in their cities. To engage further please like and share our podcasts or reach out directly on Twitter at Smart City viewpoints or on our website at WWW dot aarC web.com backslash industries, backslash smart dash cities

Jim Frazer: 0:50

Welcome to the smart city Podcast. I'm thrilled today to have our guest odd named bear Olson of gas secure a Drager company. He's He's a visiting us all the way from Norway today. And he specializes in wireless fire and gas detection systems. On Nick, it's great to have you here. How

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 1:10

are you? Thank you very much. No, it's great to be here. I always enjoy coming here for the art conference, get to meet a lot of interesting people. And the topics are also good.

Jim Frazer: 1:21

That's great. Let's just start with a foundational question. Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you came to the world of wireless fire and gas detection?

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 1:31

Yeah, so for me, it's been quite a journey. I started out as a tradesman electrician. And fortunately, my company we did back 20 years ago, we were doing smart buildings. So in Norway, the public buildings are charged on the maximum power they use at one point, and then they get massive power builds based on that. So they developed the PLC system that had control over all the heating sources in the building. And if they started making a peak, it started turning off the cooler, cooler heating is and the boilers and everything, so we could save the company a lot of money. But then just being a tradesman, I was able to put in sensors make networks. So that was the start of my journey. And after 10 years, I took my bachelor degree in business development, worked with some heating systems. And then I moved into oil and gas as a sales manager for firing gas detection, which was a very old technology because oil and gas is very conservative. But during my tenure there, I became the sensor market director of one of the large companies doing that in Norway. And we were the first distributor for a new technology made in Norway biomass gas detection. So actually the first wireless gas detection project in the world, perfect detection was done in Norway. And it was my project. And I'm not an engineer like most of the customers I have, but I'm very curious about finding out about stuff. And that's led me I live in Dubai, I'm not globally responsible for this, I get to talk to policymakers, I'm on committees to try to introduce violence into a world that's made provided guidelines. So I get to do all this stuff and first projects all over the world.

Jim Frazer: 3:14

That's, that's fascinating. Before before we get into the obstacles of the market. For our listeners, can you describe the landscape of you know, what is fire and gas detection and what's special about wireless fire and gas detection.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 3:29

So basically, anytime we want to recover energy, there's always risk associated with it. And you've designed your plan to avoid having explosive buildups you don't want to get the hazardous gases into safe areas, you have employee safety systems to shut down the plant safely to avoid ignition of potential hazards. And then the eyes and ears of the safety system is the fire and gas detectors that pick up the hazards tell the system people where to go. And basically when you design systems for refinery or a tank farm, they do it in that time. So of course access acceptance of risk changes over time and governance from the companies. For the countries there's always changing. And there's this limitation on dispersed they pretend so there's never enough iOS on the PLCs there's not enough cables in the ground to fill in safety gaps. And if you're digging in a refinery, at least in Norway, and many places even the dirt is considered to be hazardous wastes. So the new with a lot of people in in the field to do the work. But the Blight bylaws cast action you can put in an I Am, for example, an ISO 100 network and get hundreds of communication points and just place them in there's no proper permits. There's no people going to say it, there's less maintenance. So it really saves a lot of money for the customers. They want the technology but we need the guidelines to catch up.

Jim Frazer: 4:57

So What application I mean, we, I could guess oil and gas refineries are a large market for you. But what other applications are are there out there.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 5:08

So we're seeing like in Italy, now we're doing cleanrooms 444, because they don't want to punch the walls with cables. So if we can go in and, and monitor these safe rooms with wireless gas detection, that gives them full flexibility of changing where they need to have the gas, but also the keeps the clean rooms sealed still, because the virus brella signals goes in and out without a problem. We've also seen it in. There's also a lot of chemical plants. So both inside but also tense monitoring, like in Israel, they impose that everyone who has potential of, of some hazardous gases going from their area into other building areas, they will need to have the sprinklers for quality of gas detection on defenses to be able to alert neighboring sites. So that's as far as it is. And also wastewater treatment, we can do very fine measurements on if they're getting any of the gases going out.

Jim Frazer: 6:09

You had mentioned and referred to an ISO standard. How does that relate to.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 6:15

So basically, what we're seeing is where we are using ISO 100, which is an IEC standard for the communication. But what we're seeing is used my most of my work words to explain how we communicate and how robust the communication is. But now we're seeing these cybersecurity questions coming up because people are getting hacked. So basically, our communication is secure because it's designed by Isa, very stringently, so we can handle cyber attacks and stuff, but you still need to make a value chain. So normally, when I talk to the customer, it's it's all about certification on the safety level for the device and the communication and the final elements, and everything needs to be certified by IEC 61 508. So if one single part is not certified, the entire loop is worthless, because you can document the the risk reduction you're doing. And I'm expecting we will need to do cybersecurity loop calculations. And you need to put certified equipment in at set every single point from from the start of the system to define any sensors. And if there's any weak points in there that will also be avoided won't be approved for cybersecurity because you only need one part to lose the entire value chain for safety. Sure, sure.

Jim Frazer: 7:34

What obstacles do you see in this market, both wired and unwired.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 7:39

So for the market now it's we see a lot of these FM's exceed us and the people that are are doing the third party approval stuff. I sometimes get annoyed that they this test on several similar things. But you need to have approvals from everyone. They're not recognizing each other. So they're driving a lot. Sure. And that's also spilling over on the end users because I do I see approval in Europe, and you most of the world is okay. But then you come to America and then FM, you need some FM approval, you need some UL approvals, but it's the equipment is of the highest quality. But every time you go to this, you don't really add any value to your customer, because it's all red, right? So I would, I would love to see a way of getting more performance approvals both for the safety level and also for the cybersecurity that we don't end up having so many different approval agencies making us do several testings with several vendors just to be available around the world, there needs to be a more efficient way.

Jim Frazer: 8:51

So you'd like to see either one universal testing standard or harmonization across Yeah. Yeah, I can see how that increases, increases cost. In German and adoption challenges. What do you see for the future.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 9:05

So for the future, I see less people going into the field, smarter sensors that we're using more of the technology we have we are, we're also considering going into safety as a service. So with especially now with the new hydrogen value chain, there's going to be enough a lot of non expert players coming in needing to have electrolyzers filling stations, local distribution for the hydrogen. And these we can't really expect them to man up with people that have the same level as the chemical industry and the oil and gas for every site. So I'm seeing that the vendors need to take more responsibility. We need to be connected to all our sites we need to do all the trending of the performance of every single device and then we supply the customer with compliance to their guidelines as a service. So we give them uptime documentation on everything is working. As it should be according to their guidelines, and they are only basically paying an operational cost, not buying the equipment and concerned about obsolescence or soft braking, that should be our responsibility.

Jim Frazer: 10:12

Our audit, we're nearing the end of our time together. Are there any last minute comments you have for our audience.

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 10:18

So after working with red violets, gas detection for 10 years, we've seen it's starting to move fast now than before, but giving new technology a chance is still a struggle in our business. But if we're going to achieve profitable production in the future, we need to adopt new technologies and be open.

Jim Frazer: 10:40

Well, thank thank you again. If Lastly, for any of our audience members that might want to reach out to you can you share your contact information?

Adne Baer, Olsen Gassecure: 10:49

Yeah, so it's ardonagh.olson@regular.com. And if you go if you go on, on on like LinkedIn, and search for gas sector, so that's gas secure in one word, it should be easy enough to find.

Jim Frazer: 11:07

So again, I want to thank ordinay bear Olson of gas secure a Drager company for being our guest today. And we hope to see all of you again on a in the next edition of the smart city podcast.

ARC Advisory Introduction: 11:22

Broadcasting from Boston, Massachusetts. The Smart Cities podcast is the only podcast dedicated to all things smart cities. The podcast is the creation of aarC advisory group Smart City practice. aarC advises leading companies, municipalities and governments on technology trends and market dynamics that affect their business and quality of life in their cities. To engage further please like and share our podcasts or reach out directly on Twitter at Smart City viewpoints or on our website at WWW dot aarC web.com backslash industries backslash smart dash cities