It has been agreed that in order to benefit the CO2 tanks onboard the ships that are being used for the Northern Lights project, sensors to monitor corrosion will be attached to the ships.

This project, Northern Lights, is a project that has been dedicated to providing carbon dioxide transport and storage as a service. This service has been created with the aim of decarbonising the European industrial emissions, as well as, facilitating the removal of carbon from the atmosphere. This company has been created as a Joint Venture that is owned through a collaboration involving Equinor, Shell and TotalEnergies.

The contract that has been created concerning the use of the corrosion monitoring technology, involves the provision of Sensorlink's Swarm® UT sensors in CO2 tanks onboard three ships which are currently under construction. The sensors have bene designed to be installed at low points on the tanks, specifically at points where it is predicted that water will accumulate. Once installed, the sensors will detect and monitor corrosion and from what they detect, they will provide data which will be online and highly-accurate. The data will give information on the wall thickness and it will be provided directly to the ships’ control rooms and this will allow the researchers in charge of this program to enable early detection of corrosion. The benefits this technology will provide, will be very useful to the project, as it will keep the project safe, operational and will enable the project to continue operating for as long as possible, whilst providing accurate and reliable data and results.

Business Development Director at Sensorlink, Kjell Wold, commented, “As part of the energy transition, there is an increase in the transportation of CO2. While CO2 itself is not corrosive, the presence of small amounts of water combined with contamination can lead to significant internal corrosion. We are enthusiastic to see that our technology and solutions also add value in targeted efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.”