Drones in the Air for Utilities

From Suas news

What do North Dakota and Virginia have in common? Seems like not much other than being part of a direction-based pair of states. (We see you, West Virginia and South Dakota.)

But according to the drones helping utility companies in both states, there’s a lot of similarities in the work they do. (Full disclosure: We didn’t interview any drones for this story.)

Virginia Natural Gas (VNG) will be using aerial drones to help with inspection of more than 5,500 miles of gas pipeline. If this program goes well, it will be spread to other Southern Company Gas sister companies in Illinois, Georgia. and Tennessee.

The VNG drones will be operated by three recently FAA-certified pilots, and the company hopes the drones help complement the team of humans inspecting on the ground with video and aerial support. Pipeline inspection can be slow, manually intensive, expensive, and sometimes dangerous—a perfect opportunity for drones.

While VNG is focused on using drones for preventive inspections, North Dakota residents were recently without power thanks to a “winter” (it was April, y’all) blizzard. ISight Drone Services and the Northern Plains UAS Test Site flew drones over outage areas to take photos and videos of more than 400 miles of transmission lines. Power has been restored to most residents and businesses. 
Like these drone use cases? Plan to attend the Energy Drone & Robotics Summit, June 20-22 in Houston, Texas. Our “Energy Asset Owners/Operators” track will be chock full of best practices, use cases, and more.