Energy and utilities: lone worker safety, HV zone geofences and contractors accounted for.Lone workers and contractors near HV, unaccounted for?
For TSOs, DSOs, generation and utilities. We design lone worker safety tracking, HV zone geofence exclusion, contractor mustering and asset- and tool-tracking for substations, plants and field sites: independent across UWB, BLE, RFID and GNSS.
Free 30-minute call with an adviser · written proposal with the price after · fixed-scope engagements from £3k.
How it works in Energy & utilities.
Generation, renewables, and TSO/DSO grid and substation programmes (including contractor and lone-worker safety across live HV sites) sit in this hub.
UWB where a live busbar demands hard boundaries. LoRaWAN where a fleet of depots needs a decade of battery. Chosen for the grid you run.
1 · Permit
Permit-to-work is tied to live presence in the zone.
2 · Locate
Lone workers are located across substations and plants.
3 · Protect
Duress and zone-breach alerts fire in real time.
UWB → zones · BLE → workers · LoRa → wide-area
Common problems we find.
Switching and live-zone control run on paper
During a planned outage, the boundary between dead and live equipment is defined by a switching schedule and a permit, and enforced by nothing. One mis-read label, one crew in the wrong bay, and you have a fatality investigation. Geofenced HV exclusion turns the permit boundary into a hard, logged interlock.
Storm restoration multiplies your workforce overnight
Mutual-aid and contractor crews arrive by the busload, unfamiliar with your network and your rules. For days, “who is at which site, with which authorisation” lives in a spreadsheet updated by phone. When a wire is re-energised, that spreadsheet is your only proof nobody is still on it.
Critical spares are unfindable when the clock matters
A grid transformer has a two-year lead time. The test set or spare bushing that gets a substation back sooner is somewhere across forty depots. Every hour of outage extension has a regulator-reported cost, and the asset register says “Depot 7” while the van says otherwise.
Energy and utilities use cases we design for.
Cable drums and network stock
Drums and stock read in and out of depots and yards, so planners see where they are before a job. Trackers or gate reads, confirmed in the survey.
Gloves and test equipment in date
Each item read at issue and return, with items near their retest or calibration date flagged before they go out. Checks before use stay.
Contractors during a planned outage
Headcount by area and where crews are working, alongside your permit, isolation and sign in, which all stay.
Unmanned substations and kiosks
Condition and door alerts reach your control room by an agreed path, kept apart from protection systems, so a visit can be planned early.
Lone workers at remote sites
An alarm someone can act on, including man down, with the worker's location, alongside your lone working procedure.
More energy and utilities use cases.
- Live and exclusion zones: alerts when tagged people enter high voltage or exclusion areas, alongside your permit to work and safety rules.
- Mustering: a headcount at muster points to support your roll call, which stays.
- Critical spares and tools: where spares and tools are when a fault needs them.
- Field vehicles: where service vehicles and crews are during outages and storms.
- Generation assets: maintenance planned on condition and use as well as the calendar.
- Plant yards: proximity alerts for vehicles and people on foot that support your yard traffic rules, not replace them.
Hardware & software ecosystem
UWB and BLE safety platforms · active-RFID mustering · GPS field trackers · ruggedised and ATEX-rated tags where required, selected for your environment and safety case, never by price book.
Where we plug in
SAP · IBM Maximo · GIS / ADMS · permit-to-work and safety systems · SCADA-adjacent reporting · contractor-management platforms.
What good looks like.
What we design and document to
IEC 62443 (OT security) · ISO 45001 (occupational health & safety) · ATEX 2014/34/EU and IECEx where applicable · lone-worker standards (e.g. BS 8484) · permit-to-work alignment.
Where it pays back.
Substation outage safety
Contractor and lone-worker tracking with geofenced safety zones across a multi-substation outage programme.
Lone-worker SOS
Man-down and duress alerting with precise location for field technicians at remote sites.
Tool & equipment control
Test gear and switching equipment tracked across depots and substations, cutting loss and search time.
Solutions for this industry
Relevant case studies
More use cases, in detail.
Substation worker safety and arc-flash protection
Problem: Substations contain arc-flash hazards; workers entering live zones require permits, PPE verification and standoff distance enforcement.
Tech mix: BLE-AoA on worker badges, zone-access readers, integration with permit-to-work and CMMS.
Outcome: Arc-flash incidents prevented, standoff compliance evidence, audit-ready PPE-and-permit verification.
Wind turbine field-service technician dispatch
Problem: Wind farms span 100+ km with hundreds of turbines; dispatching technicians efficiently requires real-time turbine status and tech location.
Tech mix: GNSS on field vehicles, BLE-AoA on technicians at turbine sites, integration with SCADA and CMMS.
What to measure: truck rolls per turbine fault · technician utilisation · MTTR (baseline each before the pilot).
Power-line right-of-way (RoW) inspection
Problem: Transmission and distribution RoW inspection is slow and inconsistent. Drones, ground crews and helicopters all generate data that must be integrated.
Tech mix: GNSS + LiDAR on inspection drones, Passive RFID on pole and equipment, integration with asset-management.
What to measure: inspection cycle time · fault-detection lead time · regulator-required inspection compliance (baseline each before the pilot).
Battery storage (BESS) asset management
Problem: Grid-scale battery storage installations contain thousands of modules; module health monitoring and warranty tracking are critical.
Tech mix: Cell-level temperature and SoC sensors, gateway coverage in BESS containers, integration with EMS/BMS.
What to measure: cell-level fault detection · warranty claims documented per module · BESS availability (baseline each before the pilot).
Hydroelectric / hydrogen-production worker tracking
Problem: Dam and hydrogen-production sites have confined spaces, hazardous areas and remote locations requiring lone-worker safety and mustering.
Tech mix: UWB or BLE on workers, hazardous-zone access control, integration with safety-management.
Outcome: Worker safety compliance, mustering verified, audit-ready records for OSHA/regulators.
Smart-meter network rollout management
Problem: Utility AMI rollouts deploy millions of meters; installation, activation and field-service tracking are critical.
Tech mix: GNSS on installer trucks, mobile app with location-aware install workflow, integration with MDM and CIS.
What to measure: install productivity · first-time-right rate · customer activation time (baseline each before the pilot).
Critical-infrastructure security and intrusion detection
Problem: Energy infrastructure (transmission stations, generation plants, pipelines) is critical national infrastructure with security requirements.
Tech mix: Perimeter sensors, BLE-AoA on authorised personnel, integration with security-management and SCADA.
What to measure: intrusion events · false-alarm rate · NERC-CIP / NIS2 compliance evidence (baseline each before the pilot).
Solar farm panel-cleaning workflow
Problem: Utility-scale solar requires regular panel cleaning; cleaning fleet (manual or AMR) requires routing and verification.
Tech mix: AMR or GNSS on cleaning rigs, integration with O&M software, production-data correlation.
What to measure: soiling loss · cleaning frequency per panel · O&M cost per MWh (baseline each before the pilot).
EV charging-station fleet management
Problem: Charging-station networks need real-time status, queue management, and field-service dispatch.
Tech mix: Connected charging-stations, GNSS on field vehicles, integration with charging-network OS and CRM.
Outcome: Charger uptime improved, field-service efficiency up, customer satisfaction improved.
Predictive maintenance on generation assets
Problem: Turbines, generators and transformers are capital-critical; unplanned outages affect grid reliability and revenue.
Tech mix: Vibration, temperature, acoustic and oil-analysis sensors via LoRaWAN, integration with CMMS and PdM platform.
What to measure: unplanned outages · mean time between failures · lifetime cost of the asset (baseline each before the pilot).
What you gain
Lone workers you can reach
A man-down or duress alert arrives with a position, at substations, turbines and remote plant. Measured as alert-to-response time in drills and live events.
Zone entries tied to the permit
Entry to energised or hazardous zones is checked against the live permit and logged. Measured as entries without a valid permit and time to close a permit audit.
Field crews dispatched on facts
Technician and vehicle positions are known, so the nearest qualified crew gets the job. Measured as time from fault to crew on site and repeat visits.
A live headcount during outages and incidents
Control rooms see who is on site and where during an outage or evacuation. Measured as time to a verified headcount in drills.
Distributed assets you can find
BESS modules, meters, spares and chargers are tracked across sites rather than recorded once at install. Measured as asset-register accuracy and time spent locating kit.
Maintenance driven by condition
Condition data on generation assets flags wear before failure. Measured as unplanned downtime and the share of work orders raised from condition alerts.
Who else sells into energy & utilities locating and what programmes get wrong.
Utilities and generators see substation safety RTLS, worker mustering, tool and parts RFID, and IoT for plant assets, often via OT suppliers and grid SIs. Substation and plant RF differs sharply from warehouse playbooks.
What programmes get wrong: permit-to-work and mustering without reliable identity underground or in switchyards; and bolt-on IoT that never reaches the EAM work order. Independent architecture tied to safety and maintenance KPIs beats a single-radio mandate.
Locating on generation, grid and renewables sites.
Utilities and energy majors (Shell, BP, Ørsted, National Grid and peer operators) use mustering, lone-worker and critical-asset locating across plants, terminals and offshore/onshore renewables. Names are well-known market operators, not TRACIO references.
How an engagement works in energy & utilities.
Stages, with a gate after each
- Scoping call: 30 minutes with our advisers; a written proposal with the price if there is a fit.
- Discovery & business case: use cases, KPIs and technology direction (typically 1 to 5 days on site).
- Supplier selection: requirements, shortlist, RFP and TCO (typically 3 to 6 weeks).
- Pilot: judged against pass/fail criteria written before any equipment goes in (with timings agreed per site).
- Rollout & handover: scoped per project, phased by site or wave.
What we need from you
- A named sponsor who can sign off each gate
- An operations lead and an IT/OT contact for a few hours a week
- Site drawings, floor plans and process maps
- Access to your CMMS/EAM and permit-to-work systems, plus an OT/SCADA contact
- Site inductions and permits, planned around outage and shutdown windows
Frequently asked questions
How does an HV zone geofence work with lone worker RTLS?
An HV zone geofence uses locating events to warn or interlock when a person or vehicle approaches live high-voltage areas. Combined with lone worker RTLS and mustering, it gives EHS and control rooms a defensible picture of who is inside the substation fence, without replacing your permit-to-work system.
How does tracking keep workers safe across an energy network?
Lone-worker and man-down protection, mustering, and zone awareness across substations, plants and remote sites mean a worker in trouble is located and reached quickly, even alone in the field.
Does it work across dispersed and remote assets?
Yes, GNSS and LPWAN cover wide, remote networks; RTLS covers plants and confined spaces; together they give one safety and asset picture.
Can it track high-value and critical assets?
Yes, tools, mobile plant and critical spares are tracked to cut loss and downtime, and condition sensors flag failing equipment before it trips the network.
Does it support compliance and permit-to-work?
It underpins lone-working duty-of-care and emergency-response obligations, with auditable records of presence, alerts and response.
How does it integrate with our systems?
Safety, location and condition data feed your control-room, EAM or CMMS and permit systems so the information reaches existing workflows.
What does an energy or utilities engagement cost?
It depends on scope and the number of sites. Every engagement is scoped per project and priced in writing before work starts: £3k to £30k per project, or £1,200 a day in the UK. Regional ranges for Europe, North America and other regions are on how we work. Extra sites, on-site RF survey and integration into more than one system of record add to the scope. Hardware and licences are extra: you buy them direct from the supplier, and we don't resell them.
How long does an energy or utilities engagement take?
Discovery usually takes 1 to 5 days on site, supplier selection typically 3 to 6 weeks and a pilot with timings agreed per site, with a gate after each. Rollout is scoped per project. Outage and shutdown windows often set the pilot dates.
What if the pilot fails?
It stops at the gate. The pilot is judged against written pass/fail criteria agreed before any equipment goes in, so a fail is a clear result, not an argument. You pay no rollout costs and keep the artefacts from each stage: requirements, scored shortlist, TCO, RFP pack, pilot criteria and the measured results. Pilot equipment can be rented, so there is no capex to write off.
Do we need to consult the works council or employees before tracking people?
Usually, yes. Locating people is processing personal data, so under UK and EU GDPR you need a lawful basis, normally a data protection impact assessment, and clear limits on purpose: safety and mustering, not performance monitoring. Where you have a works council or recognised employee representatives, involve them before the pilot. In Germany the works council has a co-determination right over systems that can monitor staff. We design for this from the start: zone-level presence rather than continuous tracks where that is enough, pseudonymised IDs, short retention and role-based access. See GDPR and RTLS.
Who owns the data, and can we avoid supplier lock-in?
You own it. Your data and IP stay yours, with full export. We don't sell hardware, so our advice stays independent. During supplier selection we put data export, open APIs and exit terms into the RFP and contract, so you can change supplier later without starting again.