POWER January 2022 - 14

O&M
Turning T&D Inspection into
a Cooperative Data-Driven
Platform
The electricity transmission and distribution
(T&D) grid is under pressure like
never before. There are a number of data-driven
digital solutions to help shore
up the grid that have been getting a lot
of press lately. While grid inspection may
seem like a mainly analog process and
doesn't get the press other utility operations
do, it too can be strengthened
through digitalization and play a crucial
role in the digital utility of the future.
First, a bit about the size of the grid inspection
challenge. The world's electricity
consumption is expected to double
by 2050, and to meet net-zero emissions
targets, this demand must be met by
carbon-free energy sources. Just delivering
the electricity from the necessary
huge increase in generation alone is a
major challenge for the grid. On top of
this, the grid faces pressures from increasingly
severe climate change-driven
environmental threats, proliferating distributed
energy resources, and a corresponding
increase in bidirectional energy
flows and grid volatility.
In the midst of all this change, grid
inspection continues to be a labor-intensive,
largely analog process, but one that
is steadily being enhanced through the
use of sensors, drones, satellites, and
other digital technologies. Modern artificial
intelligence technology can take data
streams from these sources and help
detect defects, shorten inspection cycles,
significantly reduce costs, improve
inspection quality, and reduce the need
for on-ground teams to enter hazardous
working environments.
Successful Inspections in Estonia
and Ukraine
A number of examples already exist in
the field. One comes from Hepta Airborne,
a company that specializes in the
collection and analysis of grid inspection
data from drone-mounted and other
types of sensors. Hepta worked with
Imatra Elekter, an Estonian power provider,
to conduct an inspection to determine
the span and condition of Imatra's 10-kV
overhead lines, for which Imatra lacked
digital data. These lines travel through
bogs and dense forests, which makes
it both difficult as well as dangerous for
ground-based inspection teams.
14
Hepta helped conduct digital inspections
that used machine learning to analyze
combined LiDAR (light detection and
ranging), thermal, and RGB (red, green,
blue) data from drone-mounted sensors
to digitize 900 linear kilometers (560
miles) or nearly one-third of the overhead
lines (Figure 1). Compared to traditional
analog on-foot inspection methods, the
drone and machine learning-based methodology
lowered inspection costs by
40% and raised the quality of fault finding
by 30%. It also gave Imatra a more
accurate and up-to-date digital overview
of the lines. Any faults that are discovered
are labeled, geotagged, and colorcoded
according to their severity.
Hepta is currently helping DTEK Grids,
the largest grid operator in Ukraine, to
digitize its asset management procedures.
Currently operating more than
188,000 kilometers (about 117,000 miles)
of lines and serving more than 5.6 million
people, DTEK Grids has had trouble in
the past with unevenly developed infrastructure,
and its resulting outages in different
regions. With Hepta's help, DTEK
created new drone operator teams, who
now gather the data in the field. The data
is then uploaded to Hepta's cloud-based
power line infrastructure platform uBird
(Figure 2), where artificial intelligence is
used to speed the analysis. Compared
to previous ground-based inspections,
DTEK Grids is now detecting three times
more defects in the same time period.
Quicker inspections and analysis allow
companies like DTEK Grids to make faster
and better-informed decisions, repair2.
Thermal image of a low-voltage power
pole being annotated in uBird. Courtesy: Hepta
Airborne
ing defects before they cause outages.
Helping to digitize a grid of such size is
a daunting challenge, but the DTEK and
Hepta partnership has shown that it is
possible, and drone-based inspections in
Ukraine are ever-growing.
Digital Twins
This is likely to be just the beginning of
the integration of digitized T&D inspection
platforms into the total digital utility.
This integration opens a wide number of
opportunities to expand the use of T&D
inspection data. One example leverages
digital twin technology that is beginning
to be adopted by the utility industry. Digitized
inspection data can be combined
with SCADA (supervisory control and
data acquisition) and other operational
data to create a digital twin of the entire
grid that is being constantly updated in
near real time from field inspection data
streams.
With accurate and updated inspection
1. Hepta Airborne's cloud-based power line infrastructure platform allows infrastructure owners
to have faster inspection cycles while getting a full overview of their assets. Deploying
continuous machine learning allows automating up to 90% of the photo analysis work, thus
analyzing a large number of images at a rapid pace. Courtesy: Hepta Airborne
www.powermag.com
POWER | January 2022

http://www.powermag.com

POWER January 2022

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of POWER January 2022