Hydroelectric and other power operators face a chaotic business landscape of changing compliance, security and efficiency requirements while competing in an increasingly fractured and complex energy marketplace and creating high-value critical infrastructure.
Globally, societal demands for water, environmental changes plus competitive pressures see the once calm backwaters of hydroelectric dams requiring operators to maximise efficiency while responding to growing security concerns.
From executive to operational roles; improved and smarter physical security delivers site protection, operational reliability and asset performance, environmental compliance and digital modernization. Providing digestible insights for leaders and high-tier partners.
The Changing Face of Hydroelectric Security Needs
While a solar power or offshore wind farm can pop up almost overnight, the long-term investment and build-out of dams requires joined-up thinking across the owning business, multiple contractors and respective authorities to protect the site and deliver maximum performance. New projects use digital twins to modernize risk, but eyes-on tracking is still a requirement to ensure each part of a project works as expected.
Recent examples of added value include tying in the confluence of power and water to co-locate and operate data centers as an investment partner. These help drive sustainability as a message for a business that is notorious as power- and water-intensive while increasing the complexity of the site’s security and operational footprint.
While hydroelectric is typically viewed as a green and non-controversial topic, beyond the political hot potato of land acquisition and flooding. Add in data centers, AI powerhouses and other controversial technologies could see them become more of a target.
Improving Security and Operational Efficiency
As a part of protecting hydro power installations and improving that effort, delivering the latest in security technology integrated into every aspect of the project is a requirement. Smart technology can help protect facilities at the physical, cyber-physical and digital layers, while using the built-in features as a performance booster for security and operational teams.
A layered approach to security with smart cameras and access control technologies can protect the perimeter of a hydroelectric site. Remote cameras, drones and mast-mounted high-zoom options covering the extensive footprint of a site with constant 24/7 protection. Within key facilities, internal cameras can monitor infrastructure, work processes and access, along with sensors that track long-term component health and performance.
When monitored by AI, they can show any unusual individual behaviour, the gradual shift of environmental changes, and other issues or threats to the control room. And with zoned and localized access control, security has oversight of where every worker goes, and can trigger alerts if people are where they shouldn’t (or someone with their ID badge).
The imagery and useful data can be forwarded to security patrol’s devices, with their personal-mounted cameras providing live coverage of responses. Ensuring the appropriate response arrives on-site with the best information to handle any event, be it an environmental protest, fire or flood, attempted theft, inter-office argument or other issue.
Protecting Hydro Systems and Digital Security
As part of the overall security system, cameras can also monitor who accesses each station, computer or part of the hydro systems. The cameras can support asset performance and reliability efforts, while ensuring the basic elements like spillways, gates and turbines are operating correctly.
With most critical infrastructure hardened against external hacks, criminals or state actors are more likely to try and breach them with an internal attack using stolen credentials, someone posing as a visitor, compromised worker or other method.
They may try to disrupt communications, plant industrial malware to trigger at a later date, or cause an industrial “accident.” Using a mix of physical and digital security, teams can prevent these accesses, or minimize their impact once identified.
When it comes to meeting security governance and compliance needs, this approach will help the business, but each site will require an action plan, naming the key executives to make decisions during an incident and which teams should respond.
Whether building a new hydro plant, or updating the security on an existing project, ensuring a layered security approach that blends access control, smart AI camera technology, cyber protection and boots on the ground go most of the way to providing a best practice in defense.
And the new technology, with improving AI features that can track individuals and vehicles, identify threats and patterns of activity will help protect critical sites as we approach the 2030s and further economic, political and environmental challenges.
