Solar powered CCTV Towers with remote monitoring for solar park facility, what else?

Not all our CCTV projects are long term. Sometimes our services are only needed for a few weeks and at short notice too, as was the case when we installed a solar powered CCTV camera at Ethical Power’s Swindon solar park.

Surely a large solar park already has a substantial site CCTV system in place? “They do,” said Jon Moore, Clearway’s Southern Account Manager who managed the project. “But they were having intermittent performance issues with their CCTV system, which is why we got an urgent call.”

Security Risk

It turned out there was a problem with Ethical Power’s perimeter security fence site CCTV giving rise to a significant security risk which, in turn, had insurance compliance implications.

“Ethical Power needed a fast solution, while the issues with their wired CCTV system was fixed,” said Jon. “Our solar powered inView CCTV camera tower was perfect for the job as it could be deployed and configured within 24 hours plus it’s completely self-sufficient for both power and communications.”

An alternative option would have been to provide an SIA licensed security guard and dog to patrol the area but the inView CCTV tower represents a significant cost saving and is designed to operate 24/7 in all weathers.

Originally the CCTV tower was required for only a few days. “This turned into a couple of weeks,” said Jon “which then turned into four, while the client was waiting for parts to arrive so their own CCTV system could be repaired.”

Ongoing Service

As part of our service, the tower was monitored remotely by the team at Clearway. Camera sensors that are heat and motion sensitive picked up any movement and the camera then zoomed in to get a closer look.

Upon activation recoreded footage sent via the mobile network to the Clearway monitoring team who analysed the evidence to check whether the activity was considered to be suspicious.

Of course, the burning question is: what activity, was detected? “Mostly deer, sheep and foxes!” said Jon. “But it gave the client absolute peace of mind while they were waiting for their regular CCTV system to be fixed. And that was our aim.”