Thirty safety violations that have been discovered and remedied in a timely manner equal to thirty incidents that have been prevented and thirty lives that have been saved. Farseer – an artificial intelligence system that combines computer vision and neural networks – was implemented at Ladyzhynska TPP six months ago and has been monitoring the personnel’s safety since then. The state-of-art technology schools employees in self-control of their safety and helps power engineers make their contribution to energy independency by monitoring and preventing unauthorized interference with the functioning of the plant’s equipment that could lead to the plant shut-down.
25 cameras were installed in areas where safety is essential. The operating range of each camera is up to 60 meters. The artificial intelligence analyzes the content received from digital cameras, makes video records, and instantly notifies responsible personnel about dangerous behavior of employees such as a failure to wear PPE while performing work, unauthorized entrance to dangerous and restricted access areas, etc.
“Cameras automatically record employees without hard hats or protective glasses, or when employees enter dangerous zones. The system immediately warns OHS personnel about violations, and they respond urgently by taking measures both to remedy the violations and prevent them from repeating in the future. In six months following the system installation, power engineers have started treating their safety more responsibly and cut down on disregarding the industrial safety rules,” noted Anatolii Netreba, head of the OHS department at DTEK Ladyzhynska TPP.
Since the beginning of the year, thirty-five safety violations were recorded at Ladyzhynska TPP, of which 30 were detected by the system. In each case, an offending employee was warned about the potential consequences of the violation, and measures were taken to prevent the situation from happening again. Generally speaking, the number of violations recorded by the company reduced almost twofold: 78 incidents were recorded in eight months of the last year. The very fact that video cameras are used to monitor employees round the clock instills discipline in them.
“DTEK Energy is a responsible and reliable company that treats the life and safety of people as the top priority. The Farseer system was introduced at Ladyzhynska TPP to prevent dangerous behavior rather than punish personnel for violations, to make sure that each power engineer returns home alive and uninjured after a shift. The system fully lived up to expectations. A positive safety culture has improved. Risks of work-related injuries, an equipment failure, and the plant shut-down have been mitigated. All these things are interconnected, and even a minor violation could trigger disastrous consequences. In the future, this system will also respond to workers who smoke at a non-smoking location and to people working at heights and not using safety equipment. We expect that this rigorous control will continue instilling discipline in the power plant personnel,” commented Ihor Sniehin, director of DTEK Ladyzhynska TPP.
The Farseer system was developed by Limpid Group, a Ukrainian technological association. The system was installed at Ladyzhynska TPP free of charge, since this is a pilot project undertaken by DTEK. Once the technology has been tested for efficiency, it will be replicated to other businesses of the company.