New Thunderstorm Detector for the Offshore Sector

Thunderstorms often play a significant part in disrupting offshore operations, especially when conducting personnel transportation by helicopter. And it is not just the threat of lightning, but also the dangerous wind-shear and icing events which can take place in a cumulonimbus cloud that can present added danger offshore.

Helping to ensure the safety of operating personnel and minimize downtime, a new thunderstorm detector from Biral aims to provide early warning of nearby thunderstorms. The company’s new BTD-300 uses a quasi-electrostatic operating principle which gives early warnings of overhead lightning risk and detects strikes as far as 83 kilometers away.

According to Biral, its experience from the aviation and industrial sectors where the dangers of lightning activity have been understood for many years, has allowed the company to develop its new BTD-300 Thunderstorm Detector for the oil, gas and wind energy sectors.

An additional advantage of the BTD-300 thunderstorm detector is the operational time gained after the lightning has stopped. Usually technical crew wait about one hour after the last lightning strike has been reported by remote, third party lightning location networks. With live on-site monitoring using the Biral BTD-300, an immediate restart of activities can be made once it is safe to do so.

As well as lightning detection, the BTD-300 has the ability to detect the presence of electrically charged precipitation and strong electric field. Both of these features indicate the presence of a cumulonimbus cloud overhead, providing early warning of potential nearby lightning activity.

The Biral BTD-300 is virtually immune to all forms of manmade radio frequency interference so minimizing false alarms. With the ability to detect over twice as many flashes as conventional lightning detectors, the high sensitivity combined with low false alarm rates make it suited for thunderstorm detection.

Virtually maintenance free in operation, the BTD 300 can either interface directly to an integrated system or be operated using the supplied display and logging software. The optional warning relay module allows the sensor to automatically sound alarms whenever a storm approaches.