73. Improving Asset Inspections with Drones and AI

Improving Asset Inspections with Drones and AI The U.S. bulk electric system consists of more than 360,000 miles of transmission lines, including approximately 180,000 miles of high-voltage lines, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. That means power companies have a lot on their plates when it comes to inspecting and maintaining those assets. Furthermore, the stakes are high. As wildfires in California and elsewhere have shown, billions of dollars can quickly go up in smoke when equipment fails. San Francisco-based Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), for example, faced as much as $30 billion in potential liabilities for the role its equipment played in causing wildfires in 2017 and 2018. PG&E filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in January 2019, at least partly as a result. Therefore, finding and fixing problems before components fail is worth the effort. “For the most part, utilities are inspecting somewhere between 10% and 12% of their assets each year,” Chris Beaufait, CEO of Sharper Shape, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “They’re always trying to figure out how to prioritize in the best way, but then they also run into human resource issues, and just how much they can accomplish in a single year.” That’s where automated drone technology and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms can help. “We can do detailed inspection of various assets using drones, and we actually have specific software packages that allow parts of that to be automated so the utility can get a repeatable process on their inspection,” Beaufait said. “Then, we basically process all that data. If we do a LIDAR [light detection and ranging] data collection, as an example, we can create data assets of everything that they have in the physical world, and then we can use AI algorithms and human intelligence to really come up with actions that they can do around that so they prioritize what they're going to do in the field, around maintenance, around vegetation management, around asset replacement, or asset improvements,” he explained. Utili