New Technology to Enhance Pipeline Safety
Novel program allows companies to demonstrate innovations in real-world situations with industry partners.
Calgary, Alberta, —Pipeline safety is a priority for the entire oil and gas industry. Recent advancements in technology have significantly improved certain aspects of both leak detection and prevention. Alberta Innovates is partnering with TransCanada Corporation and Enbridge Inc. to deploy and test an innovative real-time pipeline monitoring and leak detection technology developed by Alberta-based Hifi Engineering (Hifi) on their oil pipelines in Canada and the United States.
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The Alberta Small Business Innovation and Research Initiative (ASBIRI), offered by Alberta Innovates, supports this industry partnership. ASBIRI provides Alberta-based small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with direct market access through partnerships with the industry—resulting in economic impact through company growth. Hifi is the first company to access this program.
Hifi’s patented High Fidelity Dynamic Sensing (HDS™) technology has the capability to detect various events and leaks with greater sensitivity than existing leak detection systems can provide. Hifi plans to build and manufacture this technology in Alberta to support the monitoring of thousands of kilometers of pipeline worldwide. Hifi will use Baker Hughes’, a GE company, patented Predix™ industrial Internet software platform to integrate and display the real-time data from the Hifi HDS™ technology to Enbridge and TransCanada. The fiber-optic technology will be tested at locations on the Keystone Pipeline, at Hardisty, Alberta, and Houston, Texas, in addition to Enbridge’s new Norlite Pipeline that went into service this year.
The Alberta Small Business Innovation and Research Initiative (ASBIRI) provides Alberta’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) access to real industry problems. Through partnerships with industry, SMEs gain direct access to market needs and resources that will support the commercialization of novel technological solutions while simultaneously generating material risk-weighted returns to Alberta based on economic, social and environmental metrics.
