Vegetation-related outages are a serious cause of concern for power utility service providers. Without effective vegetation management and analysis there can be service interruptions leading to huge losses.
Vegetation management is much more than just trimming trees. It is a serious affair concerned with making power lines safe for everyone. Unmanaged vegetation not only leads to power outages and consequent financial loss but also causes wildfires, putting millions of people and wildlife to danger.
Tree branches positioned very close to powerlines are likely to come in contact with the powerlines in case of high winds. This kind of contact causes fires. Strong winds can also snap wooden distribution line poles. This cause live wires to fall onto nearby dry grass, leading to wildfires.
These scenarios clearly reinforce the need to manage the vegetation around powerlines for safe & seamless operations.
Managing vegetation along powerlines is not something new for power utilities; they have been doing this for several decades. Even then the situation is not that favorable. A major issue here is that vegetation management in many areas still remains a manual process. Manual inspection processes are usually hazardous. Additionally, there is a shortage of trained workforce. This often leads to poor efficiency, thereby increasing the chances of shortcomings in vegetation analysis and consequently, more outages.
Technology is enabling every industry to perform better. Following the trend, power utilities is gearing up to use cutting-edge technologies like AI and satellite monitoring to gain complete control over their assets and the vegetation around them. If the industry is able to rightfully amalgamate the power of advanced technologies and the skills of human experts, it can overcome most of the challenges and scale new heights.
Technology experts are continuously working towards developing solutions which can automatically identify potential outage threats due to vegetation by applying advanced analytics models and artificial intelligence to geospatial-temporal data such as historical weather, satellite, and aerial imagery. Some of these solutions are doing a great job in efficiently pinpointing troublesome vegetation areas near utility equipment. These solutions are helping power utilities to have valuable insights, which are helping them to better manage and preserve assets, and avoid power outages and wildfire situations in the future. However, the not so happy news here is that even after years of research, the industry is not benefitting at the desired levels from the vegetation analysis & management solutions available.
Utilities around the world are waking up to invest in mapping and monitoring solutions for their powerlines to control the safety hazards. While capturing data has become easier than ever with the help of drones, the challenge lies in harnessing all the data and making it consumable, shareable and actionable. This is where our Vegetation Analysis Solution makes a difference.
Using our 20 years of experience in mapping and data analysis, we have developed a web based powerline vegetation and asset management tool that provides insights into the line condition and safety of the corridor. It offers remote visual Transmission & Distribution asset inspection and health monitoring using detailed and precise network measurements in 3D.
Our solution provides a 3D visualization platform which enables utility service providers to remotely view the vegetation with all vector elements and imagery. It helps you to identify the exact locations where the vegetation is approaching the wires. This timely analysis helps in avoiding future outages. The interface also helps the service providers to view the assets viz. structures (poles or towers), conductors, insulators, etc.
The Solution by providing detailed reports helps in timely analysis of issues. For instance, our detailed Vegetation Management Report elaborates on the encroachments by providing details like span-wise violations, location details of vegetation growth, graphical representation of the vegetation etc. Additionally, the Thermal Rating Report provides details on the maximum temperature for which the clearance received by the vertical under a wire becomes insufficient. Based on this report, the utility providers can identify clearance violations with nearby buildings, roads, etc. in the existing conditions. The temperature to which the line can be up-rated can also be assessed.
The Solution also provides updated asset information and helps in 3D line modelling and detailed structural analysis. There are several other important functionalities to explore such as providing detailed engineering drawings along with Ortho images of the AOI.
Effective vegetation management and analysis is necessary for power utilities to function seamlessly, thereby reducing operational costs and losses. With the help of a robust utility vegetation management solution, we intend to help you in undertaking sag and sway analysis, automatically identifying asset defects, encroachments and much more.
We are enthused to collaborate to ensure safer powerline operations all across the globe!
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