PowerGrid deploys Drone powered patrolling for its EHV Transmission Lines

Gurugram: ‘Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID), a Maharatna CPSE of Ministry of Power and India’s largest electric power transmission utility is at the forefront of deploying state of the art cutting edge technologies.
POWERGRID has initiated use of drones for EHV (Extra High Voltage) transmission line patrolling to identify defects using high resolution cameras’, according to a company press release.

Drones are being deployed for activities such as tower inspection, clearance measurement & vegetation management. Drones enable effective patrolling of transmission line sections falling under difficult/ unapproachable areas (i.e. valley, hilly, river crossing, flooded areas) as well as areas having right-of-way (RoW) issues etc. They are also being deployed for disaster management to carry out tasks such as damage assessment/aerial surveys, emergency line patrolling. POWERGRID has also developed an Artificial Intelligence based tool which has automated the defect identification process from photographs captured during drone patrolling.

POWERGRID presently owns & operates a fleet of micro category drones also for routine transmission line patrolling. During the month of February 2023, POWERGRID patrolled about 200 towers using its own in-house drones.

The total transmission assets of POWERGRID and its subsidiaries as of February 28, 2023, include 1,73,815 circuit km of transmission lines, more than 2,90,000 EHV towers of various configuration, 271 substations and transformation capacity of 4,93,862 MVA. With the use of state-of-the-art maintenance techniques, automation and digitization, POWERGRID has maintained transmission system availability more than 99%. (Feature image credits- Social News XYZ)