Self-Powering Wireless Sensor Networks in the Oil and Gas Industry

Abstract

The total revenue from the oil and gas industry in 2019 was 3 trillion dollars with nearly 350,000 businesses working in this field. For more efficiency, all machinery and equipment, including thousands of kilometers of transporting pipelines, need to be monitored continuously and in real time. Hundreds or even thousands of sensing and control nodes are needed for the oil and gas industry. WSNs approach has allowed the company to reduce the number of antenna towers and masts at remote sites, which accounts for 40–60% of the infrastructure cost of building a wireless digital oilfield network. A conventional solution to power these nodes is the use of electrochemical batteries. However, problems can occur using batteries due to their finite lifespan. The need for constant replacement in remote locations can become a very expensive or even impossible task. Over the last years, ambient energy harvesters have received great attention, including vibration-to-electric energy conversion. The aim of this chapter is to present the usefulness of implementing IoT and self-powered WSNs in the oil and gas sector, as well as challenges and issues related to adopting such a system.