POWER April 2016 - 36

OPERATIONS & MAINTENANCE
2. Home sweet drone. The Dronebox drone base station can serve as a remote, selfpowered
home for a networked system of autonomous drones. Where allowed by local law (it's
currently not allowed in the U.S.) Dronebox-based drones can perform pre-programmed inspections
or launch automatically when triggered by specific events. Courtesy: H3 Dynamics
that automatically tags and records location
and other metadata for inspection photos,
creating a customized, searchable map of
the inspection and all photos associated with
each inspected asset.
The future legality of completely autonois
not currently permitted by the FAA.)
Such aerial surveying and mapping is rapidly
becoming a popular use for drones in the
power sector, one that is drawing in companies
not previously operating drones. UK Aerial
mapping company Bluesky announced in January
that it is partnering with drone airborne
inspection and surveying firm Cyberhawk to
provide a range of aerial survey and mapping
services using UASs. The partnership will allow
Cyberhawk, which provides inspection
services for power sector facilities, among
other clients, to offer larger, more sophisticated
methods of data collection.
Drones offer particular benefits to renewable
generators, as they can dramatically
speed up inspections of wind turbine blades
and solar photovoltaic (PV) panels. (For more
on using drones for PV plant inspection, see
" Solar PV O&M Best Practices in a Rapidly
Changing Market " in this issue or online at
powermag.com.) Fiberglass turbine blades
need to be regularly inspected for cracking,
but simple methods such as binoculars are inefficient,
while more intensive methods such
as climbing the turbine or using helicopters
and cranes can be risky and cost-prohibitive.
A drone, by contrast, can rapidly inspect
blades with close-up, high-resolution video
at far less cost than a helicopter. (For a video
example of such an inspection, see https://
youtu.be/tfQ3FwIL5x8 .) While drones cannot
completely replace other methods, they
can help ensure more expensive approaches
are used only where necessary.
Solar PV plants also need regular inspections
for panel damage, cleanliness,
and proper operation, but particularly with
megawatt-scale systems, manual inspections
are slow, inefficient, and costly. The use of
thermal imaging has shown great promise in
rapidly identifying failures (malfunctioning
cells and panels typically show up as zones of
36
differing temperature from their neighbors),
but labor costs for panel-by-panel inspections
and equipment costs for aerial surveys
with manned aircraft are expensive enough
that few plant owners use them very often.
Drone-mounted thermal imaging, however,
can be fast, efficient, and cost-effective.
The Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI)
published a report in August 2015 assessing
the possibilities for UASs in solar PV plant
O&M, and concluded that, " Although it is
unlikely that UAS can be used to perform
corrective maintenance tasks (i.e., physical
repairs), they are well positioned to speed
up preventative maintenance practices. For
example, UAS can provide comprehensive
IR scans of an entire plant's modules at a
fraction of the cost and time " of manual
inspections. " This means that potential performance
issues can be identified plant-wide
immediately and accurately without the use
of statistical extrapolation, " the report notes.
Drone Support
Solutions for managing all that data are growing
as well. Drone firm Sentera in October
launched a software platform called OnTop
If you're interested in learning more about
using drones and robots in and around
your plant, you won't want to miss a special
workshop at the ELECTRIC POWER Conference
& Exhibition April 18-21, 2016,
at the Morial Convention Center in New
Orleans, La. During the workshop, Drone
University: Utilizing Drones in Your Power
Plant, drone experts will show attendees
how drones can help assess safety conditions
at plant sites, inspect equipment
www.powermag.com
mous drones is uncertain, but the drone industry
is not waiting. One possible view of
the future can be seen in the Dronebox, a
product introduced by Singapore-based H3
Dynamics in February (Figure 2). The Dronebox
is a drone base station that allows prepositioning
of autonomous drones, providing
environmental protection, charging via solar
PV panels and backup fuel cells, and remote
networking. Using the Dronebox, a fleet of
drones can perform regular programmed inspections
or be triggered into action by specified
events (a video of the Dronebox in action
can be viewed at: http://bit.ly/1TBWDLO).
Though the market is new and it's not
clear how many generators are using drones
in their O&M, the field is clearly growing.
Navigant Research estimated in a September
2015 report that global revenue for drones
and robotics technologies used in the transmission
and distribution sector would grow
from $131.7 million in 2015 to $4.1 billion
by 2024. Meanwhile, revenue from use of
UASs for wind turbine inspections is expected
to top $6 billion over the same period.
Xcel is far from the only U.S. utility pushing
forward with drones-others such as Duke
Energy are looking at how drones can cut
O&M costs and streamline operations.
If you're looking to learn more about
drones and how to best use them around your
plant, POWER is presenting a special workshop
on drones at this year's ELECTRIC
POWER Conference & Exhibition in New
Orleans April 18-21 (see sidebar).
These Are the Robots You're
Looking For
What if you need to employ testing units or
other equipment that is too heavy, bulky, or
otherwise unsuitable for a drone to carry? RoDrone
University at ELECTRIC POWER 2016
deep inside hard-to-reach areas, evaluate
temperature distribution through aerial
thermal imaging cameras, and more. Attendees
will experience hands-on flight
instruction and hear about future technologies
that will offer substantial value to
power plant professionals, as well as technical
and regulatory requirements to safely
integrate drones into operations. A video
preview of the workshop can be viewed at
https://youtu.be/9V_ZJ5AIZ8g.
POWER | April 2016

http://www.bit.ly/1TBWDLO http://www.powermag.com http://https:// http://www.youtu.be/tfQ3FwIL5x8 https://www.youtu.be/9V_ZJ5AIZ8g http://www.powermag.com

POWER April 2016

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER April 2016