Description
Industrial developments near seasides cause the marine ecosystems becoming vulnerable towards pollution. For example if the High North is developed to become a new energy province, the Barents Sea will stand vulnerable towards pollution. This problem could be administered with a novel monitoring system, that could provide continuous detection and assessment of water pollution, and send environmental warning data at earlier stage than existing surveillance systems. The main goal of this project is to develop and commercialise complementary solution for Oil Spill Detection addressing the current technology gaps as harsh environments, precision, verification; and creating the service capabilities to tend the needs of to the decision makers. As a result of the project the Oil Spill Detection System based on information and laser remote sensing technology will be developed and tested in real operational conditions with project partners.
Summary of project results
Industrial developments near seaside cause the marine ecosystems becoming vulnerable towards pollution. In oil and gas exploration, unexpected conditional changes may cause large negative impact if detected too late. No technology was able to gather precise real-time information in water, extreme Arctic conditions made the task even more challenging. To meet the dire need and common interest, ICD Industries, in cooperation with Estonian partner LDI Innovation developed a real-time oil spill monitoring system. The idea was to provide a data gathering system with early detection and mapping capabilities of oil spill in water. „This monitoring system provides continuous detection and assessment of water pollution, and sends environmental warning data at an earlier stage than existing surveillance systems. It is crucial to detect an oil spill in water at the early stage and in oil concentration phase,“ said Martin Kontus, a Project Lead at ICD / Ocean Visuals AS who is the Estonian IT partner of the fruitful Estonian-Norwegian cooperation. The lidar can be mounted on the side of a vessel or on any other fixed offshore structure. The data from different sensors in the operating area will be incorporated and sent in real-time to Network Operations Center (NOC) for further analysis and action plan. The latest deployment of Ocean Visuals technology is on board of Hurtigruten, the Norwegian coastal cruise ship MS Midnatsol. Live data feed about water transparency and oil pollution from operational OWL™ on board of a cruise ship MS Midnatsol is available here:
https://web.oceanvisuals.no/#/?_k=lp59om
Summary of bilateral results
The bilateral potential was utilized in the full scale as the project ended with joint venture company between Norwegian and Estonian partners. Furthermore, the partners were using better resources and wider networks during the project that they would ever been able to have independetly: Estonian side contributed mainly with SW/HW top know-how and Norwegian side with the market intelligence and by providing access to the client networks. A study trip GreenICT to Oslo (Sept 2014) helped to get wider attention/recognition to the project as well as some contacts for further development. Thus, the bilateral activities were considered beneficial for the project. The bilateral partnership helped to create a good environment for innovation by bringing together a company with wide marine industry solutions expertise (ICD Industries) and the world top know-how about Laser/Lidar. These were the key factors for creating an innovative solution for oil-spill detection.