Fortum, Advian and Gridjet improve the detection of district heating leaks using Artificial Intelligence

Fortum aims for carbon-neutral district heating in Espoo, Finland, during this decade. This requires a strong decrease in production-related emissions. An important contributor to it is a reduction in water leakage from the district heating network. Together with two Finnish companies, Advian and GridJet, Fortum has launched a project to detect leaks faster and with higher accuracy. During the project, Advian, a company specialized in analytics, is developing artificial intelligence and geospatial analytics, and GridJet provides helicopter-based thermal imaging service.

Fortum has used helicopters for several years to take thermal imaging that detects underground district heating leakages. Small leaks are detectable during spring and autumn due to temperature differences between the warm leaks and cooler surroundings. The goal of the new project is to use artificial intelligence to process and analyze all the collected thermal camera data which helps to find more leaks earlier and more accurately.

“Detecting and predicting leaks early is a necessary step towards optimizing the district heating system”, says Ari Anttila, operations Manager from Fortum’s Heating and Cooling business. “Professional and resourceful partners such as Advian and GridJet help us to provide modern, data-driven and carbon-neutral district heating to our customers already during the 2020s.”

Advian develops thermal data processing to enable a full heat map of the district heating area, as well as using Artificial Intelligence and Computer Vision technologies to differentiate district heating leaks from other naturally occurring warm features in the city, such as warm cars or ventilation exhausts.

GridJet has developed flight procedures for efficient thermal imaging of district heating grids. In co-operation with Advian, GridJet is developing the necessary equipment for helicopters to operationally capture thousands of thermal images and enable seamless data processing in the cloud.

For more information, contact:

Ari Anttila, Operation Manager, Heating and Cooling Finland, Fortum, ari.anttila@fortum.com

Christoffer Winquist, Advian Oy, christoffer.winquist@advian.fi

Ville Leino, GridJet Oy, ville.leino@gridjet.fi