Wirescan News: The LIRA Technology to support a methane emission climate change research

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas. Huge amounts of it in the form of methane hydrates are stored around the world in the sea floor. Upon escaping into the atmosphere, greenhouse gases act as a blanket insulating the Earth, absorbing energy and slowing the rate at which heat leaves the planet. Due to this “greenhouse effect”, the Earth’s average temperature does not fall below freezing.

However, the “greenhouse effect” has grown stronger over the past centuries, contributing to the warming of the planet at a rate which many consider alarming.

Lofoten islands (public photo)

A reliable and sufficient power supply is essential for the real time data acquisition.

The issue of the methane emission climate change in the ocean is a focus of gas hydrate research of many institutes including the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (Havforskningsinstituttet).

Within the framework of this and other projects, Norwegian Institute of Marine Research does a continuous real time data acquisition at the Lofoten-Vesterålen Ocean Observatory - LoVe Ocean (https://loveocean.no/).

LoVe  Ocean is a network of cabled and autonomous scientific subsea nodes equipped with various chemical, physical, biological sensors, and a satellite with passive acoustics and imaging. A reliable and sufficient power supply to the nodes is essential for the process.

Fault localization with the LIRA Technology.

Norwegian Institute of Marine Research has engaged Wirescan AS to utilize our patented LIRA (Line Impedance Resonance Analysis) Technology for cable condition assessment and fault localization.

We are proud to support this important research.   

Typical LIRA spot signature (generic data)

Successful track record.

The LIRA Technology has been successfully used since 2005 for fault location and condition monitoring of electrical power cables in all corners of the world and in all industries: offshore and onshore wind, cable manufacturing, power transmission and distribution, oil and gas, nuclear and railway.

The accuracy of fault localization is 0.1 - 0.3% of cable length.

Read more about the LIRA Technology at https://www.wirescan.no/lira-technology-1 

When your boss is a Rockstar….

My boss is Morten Huseby and he is a Rockstar.

Bold, artistic, revolutionary, sensational.

He creates, thinks BIG, turns standard formulas into a surprising new twist. He challenges the status quo and sees opportunities everywhere. This is how the whole Wirescan Digital concept came to life - hands on cable knowledge, masters in data science and signal processing and disruptive mind.

His genuine excitement is contagious. It inspires, drives us forward through periods of uncertainties. Trust him to bring a dash of unexpected humour to liven up a meeting. He has drawn together an incredible team of strong individuals to turn Wirescan into a disruptive force with remarkable growth.  He thrives on working against the grain.

Where does all this creativity, passion, drive, thinking out-of-the box come from? Our customers and friends say: “This guy has a Rockstar personality”. He does. Except…. he is a true Rockstar. I mean, the genuine “bona fide” one with Fenders,  Gibsons, JazzMasters, Stratocasters, concerts, live tours, new releases, Sportify, top 10 lists, albums, vinyl records, studios, producers – the whole package.  Wherever you go - New York, London, Melbourne, Copenhagen, Tromsø, Houston, Singapore, Astana, Luxembourg, Ulan Bator, Moscow – you meet his fans. You get the idea - not your “weekend – garage – amateur” thing.

The Rockstar and his Guitar…

I can tell you a lot of stories about Morten. But what tells more about a true Rockstar than his guitar? This is a part of his soul, mind, his whole essence as an artist and a person.

When you come in your own as a musician, find your sound, you want a perfect partner to render it to the world. You need total harmony … you need “your”guitar.

They say that guitars have souls, they are often personified and are given names. They have heads, necks, bodies, waists, don’t they? They age, accumulate life stories and battle scars, they travel from a town to a town, they become one with their owners.

Morten has and plays many guitars but there is one which has definitely become his legacy and the most cherished one. This guitar has an invisible quality of the human care and his passion embedded in all seams and curves. This is the one he created and handcrafted himself, it is a match made in heaven. They have been playing together for more than 11 years, and both improve with age. Like an old married couple, smoothing the rough edges and becoming totally in-sync. He touches the string and it produces his sound.

They have often been on the road touring the country. Jack Stillwater is not one of those bands which play one concert a year in Oslo – they are true artists. Tromsø, Bodø, Lofoten, Bergen, Odda, Kristiansand, Hamar, Drammen, Narvik, Stokmarknes, Sandefjord, Tønsberg....

One night when Morten was about to leave for a concert tour, his little son Knut – 5 at the time – crawled on his lap, hugged him and said he would miss him and he wished to go with him. “If you draw on my guitar you will always be with me – at every concert, in every city and on the road wherever I have my guitar with me”, - Morten said. “ I will look at your drawing and I will always think of you”. And so little Knut did. He draw small sweet spiders with huge eyes and twiggy legs on the shiny surface, spider babies. In the prime corner appeared the big one – the spider Dad - watching over his jolly offsprings.

Sweet spiders babies with huge eyes and twiggy legs

The spider Dad watching over his jolly offsprings

The Rockstar and his legacy.

This is the story of Morten’s main guitar. This is the story of the source of the Rockstar creativity which translates into Wirescan Digital. Gradually but inevitably it is changing the world to a safer happier place.  He creates Wirescan Digital with the same passion and unconventional approach as he composes his music and plays his guitars.

PS: If the twiggy legs spiders do not make you smile, sigh happily and get this warm fuzzy feeling in your chest , then (I am truly sorry if so) you are made of stone!

“The Rockstar creativity translates into Wirescan Digital. Gradually but inevitable it changes the world to a safer happier place”.

Disruptive mind and the moment of truth

If you believe any business or any deal can be done by following tried-and-true business practices (as they teach in business schools) the reality will soon correct this.

Breakthrough thinking and creativity often comes from making uncommon connections. I call it “thinking out of the box”. For some it takes an extra effort, for Anders Berger it comes naturally. This is a fact that fascinated me from the very first day I met him. Years later this fascination has grown only bigger.  I understand where Anders comes from. He had an impressive and diverse carrier – merges, acquisitions, start-ups, advance-ups, venture capital funds, complicated shareholder agreements, exits, investments – you name it. He has done it all, he has been on every side of a table of any shape imaginable. He has worn many many… many hats. He is the Financial Man.  A traditional, calm, balanced, reasonable, cool-headed and experienced financial man. But this one comes with a delightful surprise. Anders is a treasure chest of wonderful unconventional  experiences. Moreover, he has an incredible ability to link these stories to any business challenge or task and trigger an uncommon connection. Uncommon connections.  Disruptive thinking. Disruptive technology. Do you follow me?

Mixing disruptive thinking with stimulating “set on the future” minds (i.e. incredible Wirescan team) gives a result of a disruptive technology and new solutions causing unanticipated opportunities.

Some people need to read a couple of science fiction novels, or listen to some futurist, to consciously trigger this kind of thinking. Anders has another source of creative renewal and inspiration.

His mind never sleeps. His life is full of people, activities, plans, schedules, obligations…

What does he do to recharge? A quiet afternoon with a book on a sofa? No… not Anders. Whenever he gets a chance he is there – somewhere out in the nature. Doesn’t matter if it is a patch of forest by the house or a remote place up in the mountains. This is his moment of truth and solitude of mind. Skiing or walking he’d push himself out of the comfort zone, exploring the limits, reaching this blissful level of intensity when his mind clicks into “the mode of suspense”. All thoughts, worries, lists, tasks dissolve into a timeless bodiless nothingness. He merges in one with the moment, with himself and the nature. The moment just for Andres, regardless if he is surrounded by people. This moment will be his. The moment of renewal. The moment that brings forward the uncommon connections and disruptive thinking, which calmly and quietly pushes us out of our comfort zones. To explore our limits, to disrupt the world, to create something great which will make all your lives so much better.

This is the story of our Wirescan Anders. Anders Berger. The treasure chest of disruptive thinking.

“Breakthrough thinking and creativity often comes from making uncommon connections”

One year of the Wirescan life: 2020 - a year like no other.

2020, a year like no other. The world paused overwhelmed by premonition of the true modern-day annus horribilis.
At the same time, while forcing lessons on us, the global turmoil unleashed a new level of creativity and the tech surge stimulated by strong survival instincts and the need of digital transformation. For Wirescan it became a year of accomplishments when we turned our dreams into realities and grew even stronger.

Wirescan 2020 in catch phrases:

“A force capable to weather any storm”:

We became stronger and more harmonious as a team. We lost some members but we gained new ones who add fuel to our passionate drive and the competence pool. We became more structured and efficient. Today, we feel like a force capable to weather any storm we encounter.

“A dream to reality”:

A hurricane of cable issues unleashed and accelerated our tech development. Pushed by market demand, our tech has surged. Wirescan Digital emerged as a tangible digital commercial system, and today, Wirescan Sensors collect data in real time from cables in operation. We now have two commercial Wirescan Digital systems up and running.

“In Customers we trust”:

2020 brought a declaration of confidence in the LIRA technology from the market. We grew our customer base, acquired more followers and like-minded visionaries. The lockdown brought us closer together as seemingly distant issues became an acute and painful reality. Incredible feedback from our existing and new customers has become a source of confirmation and inspiration of our Wirescan Digital vision and input for development.

“Unlimited opportunities await people who dare to seek”

We turned around the way we operate and proved that we are excellent at remote operation at scale. Online meetings of course but more importantly, on site operation support for ongoing projects and the emergency response. Regardless of closed borders, cables were being installed, failures had to be assessed and remedied. We found a way to make complicated simpler, easier to implement and more cost efficient. Despite 93% cut in travels, we have not only grown our customer network, but we also significantly increased our revenue and established a solid basis for scaling Wirescan Digital.

The list can go on but it can be summarized as follows:

2020 made us ready to disrupt cable operations and maintenance and reshape our commerce with Wirescan Digital.