Fuel theft is believed to add up to 30% to energy opex in Africa. In the battle with the diesel mafia, how can RMS tip the conflict in favour of the tower owner? TowerXchange wanted to learn more about fuel theft, and learn more about how to configure and filter RMS data to meet the needs of different users. So we spoke to Telemisis, who have an installed base of tens of thousands of RMS systems from small deployments at fifty sites to many thousands. In Africa, Telemisis’ SitePro RMS systems have been deployed in Egypt, Tanzania, Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria.
TowerXchange: Thanks for speaking to us Chris. Let’s be honest, a lot of fuel pilferage originates within the supply chain, so is there a risk of remote monitoring sensors being damaged by staff or subcontractors?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
Unfortunately much of the fuel fraud or theft is internal, so interference with sensors is a common problem we pick up.
For example, one of our clients was aware of regular small amounts of diesel theft, enough to supply one or two vehicles, at one of their sites. The parties responsible tried to sabotage the sensors by disconnecting the power. They thought they’d disabled the system and started draining the fuel. Fortunately our devices are extremely resilient to tampering (our systems have independent power systems, internal disconnection sensors, tamper protection on fuel probes and fuel hatches), so the thief triggered an alarm and the client was able to dispatch someone to the site, where they discovered the security guard was pilfering fuel.
We can also combat fraud by cross-referencing fuel alerts against invoices. On one fairly large system we picked up invoices routinely 10% above what the subcontractor said had been delivered. We conducted an accuracy test on our system and found it was accurate within 1 litre. In that particular instance, we found that the metering on delivery vehicles was 10% high across the board, so the error was corrected.
On a single site the operator was paying for 12,000 litres of diesel per year that they were not actually using!
In Tanzania we had a site where the client was burning 1,000 litres of diesel per month in two deliveries of 500 litres… yet the tank capacity was only 430 litres! After we deployed our RMS the system didn’t need refueling again all year, as the grid supply was reliable. So on a single site the operator was paying for 12,000 litres of diesel per year that they were not actually using! Multiply that kind of saving across many sites, and add in the savings from reduced truck rolls, and it pays for an RMS system in no time at all!
In another example, I remember one of our Caribbean customers had installed one of our main units into their gensets when they experienced the theft of one of their generators from a site. The system has GPS ring-fencing, so they dispatched someone to the site with local law enforcement, noticed on the way that the GPS said they’d just passed the generator, stopped, turned around and found the dumper truck the thieves had used to rip the generator off the site! Unfortunately theft of the actual generator itself is a common occurrence in Africa so GPS tracking provides the potential for the equipment to be tracked and recovered.
TowerXchange: Is watering down of diesel another common problem?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
Yes, so fuel quality monitoring is also essential. Water in the fuel is actually relatively easy to detect. On the other hand, kerosene or biodiesel contamination is extremely difficult to detect. If you put kerosene into a diesel generator, it will keep on running, but the generator will run until it destroys itself, so it can be extremely harmful. We have a solution for monitoring kerosene and unexpected hyrdocarbons contamination that costs a tenth of the price of the other solutions available on the market.
TowerXchange: How do you differentiate Telemisis from competitive RMS solutions?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
Telemisis has a background in electricity monitoring, security and automation, using small format solid-state site equipment designed to work in harsh environmental conditions meaning that reliability and ease of deployment are designed in. Our rugged SiteNode telemetry device is capable of withstanding operating temperatures from -30oC to +80oC. A lot of competitors’ RMS systems come from a background of IT monitoring where environmental conditions are benign and communications are reliable which means that some struggle in the environments experienced in Africa. Our experience in power source management on cell sites, whether utilising green energy sources or maximising battery usage within operational limits before remotely starting the genset, means that we can provide a solution for the most important aspect of cell sites; the power source. Because Telemisis SitePro is designed as a remote telemetry system from the ground up, it largely self-configures, which reduces the need for highly skilled technicians to deploy the system.
Site owners can install all elements of the system supplied by Telemisis, or it can be designed to work with equipment and sensors already on site.
Our system ranges from small format, solid-state devices deployable for machine monitoring and GPS tracking on generators or off grid solar-powered sites, to larger switch sites.
TowerXchange: How have your clients’ requirements changed and how has your solution evolved over the last ten years?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
Our system has evolved in many ways over the past ten years from feedback from our customers’ requirements and to take advantage of new technologies as they become available. Some of our systems have been installed for many years, and over that time our clients’ requirements have evolved and their site monitoring solution from Telemisis has expanded to meet these needs. If you can address changes without sending people to the site, that fulfills one of the key aims of RMS; to reduce site visits. We don’t want to create site visit requirements for the telemetry, so remote upgrade and reprogramming is made possible though our secure interface.
We understand that once you’ve gone down a route partnering with a telemetry supplier in your network, it is expensive and difficult to change so to a certain extent you’re committed to that supplier. For this reason we think it’s critical that new hardware retains backwards compatibility so that expansion and upgrade is easy. Our SitePro system is backwards compatible to the equipment we installed in 2002-3.
TowerXchange: Tell us more about deployment of your systems, from self-configuration to communication with the NOC.
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
Our devices automatically configure themselves to connect to the server. For example the system recognises the SIM card and the settings it needs. Our temperature and humidity sensors are all pre-calibrated and fuel sensors are automatically calibrated as part of the startup procedure.
Once we’ve established communications with the central server, the intelligence in that server enables a project manager in the NOC to rapidly apply the correct configuration. The system only presents options that are viable in terms of the equipment that is connected on site.
So we only need a skilled technician at the NOC, who configures and commissions the site with the person on site processing through physical tests by walking in front of sensors, closing breakers etc.
TowerXchange: How do your sensor devices in the field communicate with the NOC?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
The information collected on site is intelligently processed and transmitted to the NOC through the most applicable route such as Ethernet, GPRS or SMS. Multiple back-up communications options are available to ensure the information gets back, particularly when there are problems on site that may affect the primary transmission path.
Integration with the NOC systems is often implemented by Telemisis at an SNMP level but higher levels of integration provided by SitePro provide valuable insight into site condition allowing proactive site visits or reduced site visits by diagnosing the faults remotely and responding accordingly. The more detailed information is useful particularly where customers want integration with back-office systems. This makes business intelligence more powerful through the integration of live, real-time data.
Our ability to buffer data in the event of a communication problem is critical to the integrity of the system but fallback transmission means the data is available to the engineers when it is most needed, when normal site communications are down.
TowerXchange: Tell us where the Telemisis SitePro system fits within the systems and processes within the NOC.
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
It depends what systems the client already has and what information they want. Typically the NOC has basic alarms transmitted to it through BTS inputs which typically offer very little useful information on the site systems, or in some cases by SNMP which can generate a large amount of alarms which are too numerous to handle at the NOC.
The SitePro system collects a lot more than alarms, by providing readings that enable the user to have valuable additional information enabling them to act more efficiently. SitePro passes the clear cut alerts that the NOC operators want to the NOC screens but makes the extended information available to the engineers or managers providing them with the information they need so that they have a good idea what to expect before they go onsite and can respond efficiently, maximizing productivity and site availability.
For example, an operator might see a generator alarm from a remote site two and a half hours drive away. From the NOC he can see that the charger alternator has failed. He can then dispatch a maintenance person equipped with a replacement charger alternator to replace then and there, rather than having to make a five hour round trip for diagnostics and another to perform the actual repair.
RMS should focus on three critical aspects; intelligent rectifiers, batteries and generators, categorised as an Integrated Power Management Solution (IPMS).... Everything else is noise
Our job doesn’t end with the installation of sensors; it’s critical to feed back management information into the decision making processes of site owners and operators to support their tendering
TowerXchange: How do RMS support decision making processes?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
We think it’s important that we provide genuine Remote Management not just Remote Monitoring. Our job doesn’t end with the installation of sensors; it’s critical to feed back management information into the decision making processes of site owners and operators to support their tendering with provable information on service patterns, fuel use, and fuel theft.
Our information helps identify patterns in faults and equipment degradation, informing battery replacement decision-making processes by assessing battery performance over time against specifications laid out by the client.
We provide accurate data on fuel delivered and fuel burned, which is critical when re-tendering for fuel supply and delivery.
TowerXchange: Why is RMS so critical for towercos?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
The intelligence from RMS enables towercos to optimise their site operations, which is critical for improving site level profitability. The visibility of site condition is of prime importance because if you don’t know what is happening on site you can’t respond, and failure to meet SLAs can be costly to towercos.
SitePro also provides remote control capabilities meaning that action can be taken either without sending an engineer or while the engineer is en-route. For instance you receive a generator “fail to start” alarm from site, meaning the site is running on the batteries and so time is ticking away towards a site outage. Remote control of the generator means that the engineer can take remote control of the generator and manually start the set and check its condition so keeping the site operational.
In the unlikely event of disputes, towerco’s can use SitePro to prove the achievement of SLAs.
Towercos also often install tracking devices on their fleet of vehicles. With SitePro this can be integrated within the same monitoring system, providing a more comprehensive enterprise solution. If fuel delivery vehicles are included on the system, the fuel supply chain information is condensed into a single point of interface.
TowerXchange: Tell us about the scale of human intervention required to respond to remote monitoring alarms – at what point is the network too big for one person to manage alarms and manually integrate with job ticketing?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
You need to set up a tree structure and group sites by area to keep supervision to perhaps a maximum of one hundred or so sites per region. It varies according to the requirements of the network concerned. Some operators might only be able to cope with ten or so sites, but automated processing and filtering of information is critical.
With Telemisis SitePro, automatic reporting is supplemented by a unique user login that filters the information to just the information at the level of concentration that user needs to see. Auto reporting means that the users don’t need to login to the system for day to day information, it is in their inbox each day that they need it, for that region, for that person in the org-chart. Automation is important if you’re managing more than ten sites, and it’s critical if you’re managing thousands.
For example, a towerco they may want to make some fuel data available to a subcontractor, so that data can be filtered by geography and by subcontractor, and only the information important to that subcontractor is shared. Similarly, towercos can allow network managers and operator tenants to login and examine certain data across multiple regions, but only seeing sites on which they are tenants.
The central monitoring team in the NOC can use their normal screens, other users can use our web-based interface, while the field engineers use integrated mobile apps for industrial tools and smartphones. The management team typically uses business intelligence tools fed with information from our system. We can provide trouble-ticketing and service management alerts, or our data can be fed into existing systems if preferred.
Ours is a scalable system able to manage ten to twenty sites on a Telemisis hosted system, or up to tens of thousands of sites where operators typically host their own systems and often have data fed into their existing business intelligence systems.
TowerXchange: What is the estimated capital outlay per site to acquire and install your systems?
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
That really is a “how long is a piece of string” question as so much depends on the client’s objectives, and that may differ from site to site.
In general, you’re probably looking at an average capex of around £2-3,500, depending on which country you’re in. That’s the installed price including a reasonable base of sensors. Installation costs vary significantly and some countries you need to add £1,000 per site just for labour costs. So I’d estimate maybe £2,500 for the equipment in a well equipped system, plus £1,000 for installation since you don’t need technical guys on site.
TowerXchange: Please tell us an example of the Telemisis solution in action.
Chris Begent, Commercial Director, Telemisis:
When Hurricane Dean struck Jamaica in 2007, the incident really illustrated the benefit of RMS. The network equipped with our telemetry was able to get up and running within 24 hours, while a competitor’s network took many days to get back into full operation. Telemisis monitored the shut down of grid power at the peak of the hurricane (so 240V weren’t running through the systems during extreme weather!), and the immediate start of generators afterwards. Vital information on site alarms allowed the prioritisation of visits to affected sites keeping active sites on air and enabling rapid repairs to be undertaken efficiently with best use of resource.
