Normalized for load
Each connection's rise over ambient is compared with current from the EPMS meters. A joint heating faster than its load explains is flagged, even while still cool.
Example engagement
A thermal survey that never goes home
A representative data center campus where one infrared survey a year was the only thermal check on its medium-voltage gear and battery containers. Fixed Lensnode T cameras would watch every critical connection, every minute.
Example engagement — a representative scenario built from typical deployment parameters. Figures are modeled, not reported results from a named client.
Critical-power monitoring at a glance
- Industry
- Data centers & critical power
- Hardware
- 20 Lensnode T cameras viewing through IR windows on two switchgear lineups
- 4 Lensnode T cameras, one inside each battery container
- 3 Gatepoint XT gateways, one per switchgear side and one at the battery yard
- Modbus TCP link to the electrical power monitoring system (EPMS)
- Timeline
- 3-week Feasibility Sprint, 6-week Proof of Value, 12-week deployment across two planned maintenance windows
Modeled results
4–8 weeks
earlier warning of a degrading connection than the next periodic IR survey (modeled)
1 min
between readings of every monitored connection
24/7
thermal coverage, instead of one survey day a year
The situation
Two lineups, four containers, one survey a year
Picture a data center campus fed at medium voltage, with two switchgear lineups, an A side and a B side, so that either can carry the critical load while the other is maintained. Beside the building, a battery energy storage system (BESS) sits in four containers.
The maintenance program is sound by most standards. Once a year a qualified thermographer surveys the switchgear through infrared windows in the covers, and the battery containers from inside.
The trouble is physics. A loose or corroding bolted connection heats in proportion to the square of the current through it. In a 2N design each side usually carries well under half its rating, so a joint that would run alarmingly hot at full load shows only a modest rise on survey day: at 40% load it produces just 16% of its full-load heat. And the survey sees one day. A connection that starts to degrade the week after the thermographer leaves has most of a year to get worse.
Constraints
What a critical-power site allows
- Uptime
- No unplanned outage is acceptable; every task runs under an approved method of procedure (MOP)
- IR windows
- Existing windows cover most terminations; adding the rest means de-energizing compartments, so that work waits for the planned maintenance window on each side
- Electrical safety
- Installation only on de-energized, locked-out equipment or outside arc-flash boundaries; nothing intrudes on required working clearances
- Battery containers
- Camera positions agreed with the BESS integrator; nothing obstructs fire-suppression nozzles, deflagration vents or rack service access
- Outdoor environment
- The battery-yard enclosure sees sub-freezing winter nights and summer interior temperatures above 50 °C
- IT/OT rules
- EPMS network isolated from corporate IT; no cloud; alarms must appear in the existing EPMS console; every device on the asset register with an SBOM
- Staffing
- Critical-facilities technicians on 24/7 rotating shifts; the site electrical engineer works days
Approach
From single-line diagram to live alarms in the EPMS
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Feasibility Sprint
For electrical assets the Sprint is a site study, not a box of samples: single-line diagrams, recent survey reports, IR-window positions and a year of EPMS load data. We map what each camera can see through a window. Window material attenuates infrared, so readings are corrected for transmission and trends outweigh absolute values. Exit: a camera map and a go.
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Proof of Value
Loaner cameras on the B side's existing windows and in one battery container. Success criteria, agreed in writing: every termination in view read every minute, readings within an agreed tolerance of the site thermographer's handheld check through the same windows, and alarms visible in the EPMS.
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Deployment
Additional IR windows and camera brackets go in during the two planned maintenance windows, B side first. Alarm and trend points are mapped to the EPMS over Modbus TCP, and every device is hardened, documented and delivered with an SBOM under Edge & OT Security.
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Care Verified
A Perflens analyst verifies each thermal alarm within 4 hours on business days, while site technicians see alarms immediately, around the clock. Load-normalized baselines are refreshed quarterly.
What the system does
How continuous thermal judges a connection
Phase against phase
The same termination on phases A, B and C, under the same current, should look alike. A growing difference between phases, the thermographer's oldest test, is checked every minute.
Inside the battery containers
A Lensnode T in each container watches DC bus connections and HVAC discharge air, alongside the battery management system and gas detection, not instead of them.
Alarms where operators already look
Alarm and trend points reach the existing EPMS over Modbus TCP, so thermal alarms appear beside breaker status, not on another screen.
Built for the battery yard
Gatepoint XT is rated from −40 to 70 °C, so it lives in a sealed enclosure at the yard and buffers readings locally if its network link drops.
Two sides, two gateways
Each switchgear side reports to its own gateway, mirroring the site's redundancy, so a fault in one side's monitoring never blinds the other.
Modeled results
What the modeled year shows
4–8 weeks
earlier warning of a degrading bolted connection than a periodic IR survey
16%
of full-load heat that a faulty joint produces at 40% load, which is why survey days miss it
1 min
between readings of each of the 24 camera views
Modeled for two medium-voltage lineups in a 2N arrangement, each side carrying 30–45% of its rating, plus four BESS containers. The modeled fault is a bolted connection whose resistance rises steadily over about four months. Earlier warning compares the continuous system's load-normalized alarm with the first day a survey at typical load could have shown the joint above the site's thermography action threshold. Faults that develop in hours, such as a sudden mechanical failure, are outside this comparison.
Phase two
What we would add after the first year
- Downstream gear. Low-voltage switchboards, busway joints and UPS cabinets carry the same bolted-connection risk at lower voltage, with easier camera access.
- Transfer and generator switchgear. This gear carries load only during tests and events, so a load-aware baseline matters even more there.
- Partial discharge. Insulation failures in medium-voltage gear often begin as partial discharge, which produces little heat early on. A partial-discharge study would show whether dedicated monitoring is warranted.
- A sharper annual survey. Continuous data tells the thermographer where to look hardest. It doesn't replace the survey, which sees everything the fixed cameras don't.
Related services
The services this scenario combines
Continuous Thermal & Multispectral Monitoring
Fixed radiometric cameras on switchgear, busbars, BESS containers and substations, trended against load.
Read more
Edge & OT Security
Hardening, network segmentation, SBOMs and signed updates for devices that sit on critical networks.
Read more
Data Centers & Critical Power
Thermal, electrical and environmental monitoring for sites where an outage is never an option.
Read moreFAQ
Questions we hear often
Does this replace our annual infrared survey?
No. Fixed cameras watch the connections chosen at design time; a thermographer sees the whole room, including things nobody expected to fail. Continuous monitoring changes the eleven months between surveys, and how much the thermographer knows walking in.
Do cameras go inside the medium-voltage compartments?
Not in this scenario. The cameras sit outside, looking through IR windows rated for the gear, so nothing new is installed inside an energized compartment and no clearances change.
Does the system need an internet connection?
No. Cameras, gateways and Perflens Console run on the site's isolated EPMS network. Analyst verification uses an outbound link the site opens and can close at any time; with it closed, monitoring and EPMS alarms carry on locally.
Map the connections you can't afford to lose
Start with a single-line diagram and your last survey report. A Feasibility Sprint returns a camera map, a coverage estimate and a written go/no-go in three weeks.