Gasunie covers over 15,000 kilometres of pipeline in the Netherlands and northern Germany, dozens of sites and around 1,300 gas receiving stations. The sites vary in function and size so their security infrastructure ranges from simple fencing to sophisticated fence systems with perimeter detection systems and CCTV.

“The fundamental requirement at every site is that unauthorised intruders are always identified as fast as possible at the perimeter,” explains Reiner Woldring, Gasunie’s corporate security advisor. “We need camera pictures for verifying the alarm reports which may need to be followed up by the police or another special guarding service,” reports Woldring. “For this we need good quality cameras, reliable transmission and storage of camera pictures as well as user-friendly functions for calling up the pictures in the alarm centre.”

The 25 sites monitored by CCTV all have IP systems controlled from the control centre at Gasunie’s Groningen HQ through a modern Geutebruck Geviscope platform fully integrated into the company’s own management system. “Nowadays we work with a lot fewer cameras per site” explains Herman von Hierden, from Gasunie’s electrotechnics, instrumentation and process control department, “and most of them can be remote controlled from the centre.“ Control centre staff call up camera images in real time and have immediate access to alarm recordings. Thanks to Geutebruck’s efficient bandwidth management even remote sites with low bandwidth now have CCTV and automatically controlled lighting.

Protecting internationally critical infrastructure means being prepared for every eventually so Gasunie has a full back-up security centre at an undisclosed location. “Whenever necessary this second centre can be used to take over all duties,” assures Woldring.