Explore real-world case studies showcasing the effective use of UAVs in energy and utility projects in this insightful session. Industry experts will share their practical experiences and insights, highlighting the tangible benefits and challenges encountered when integrating UAV technology into energy and utilities workflows. Each presenter will deliver a concise but detailed presentation, providing genuine insights into their projects and demonstrating how UAVs have contributed to achieving project objectives. From inspecting assets to optimizing maintenance operations, these case studies offer valuable lessons and inspiration for leveraging UAVs in the energy and utilities sector.
Amped Up Airspace: Drones in the Service of Energy Providers
In response to the utility industry’s growing demand for improved workflow efficiency and enhanced safety measures for frontline workers, there has been a noticeable trend towards the integration of drones and advanced software solutions for inspecting and monitoring power infrastructure. As a leading provider of airspace and mission management software solutions, ANRA Technologies recognizes these industry requirements and is committed to offering comprehensive solutions through a unified software platform. Presently, ANRA Technologies is providing this platform to The New York Power Authority (NYPA), the nation’s largest state public power organization as well as other enterprises. This platform enables effective management of robotics and advanced software for facility and infrastructure inspections, transmission line monitoring, and fleet management optimization. This panel will use NYPA as a case study and also cover how this new integrated technology platform helps NYPA and other enterprises, improve shared situational awareness, reduce response times, and improve workflows for everyday operations and maintenance projects, weather events, and other emergency response activities.
Brent Klavon, ANRA Technologies
Drone Applications for Solar Sites
Terratek GPS Modeling is currently using our drone with both photogrammetry as well as LiDAR to assist engineers and EPC’s throughout the entire process of a solar site. We utilize point clouds, in conjunction with traditional survey to keep record of grades, construction progress, and earth moving. We also directly work for the civil contractors on site to build GPS machine control models. The point cloud is the brain of the operation, oferring millions of data points to keep record, and solve problems. The newer motorized racking systems in particular have stringent requirements on what the grades need to be. being able to fly a site in 20 minutes and process the point cloud later that day gives the engineers fast and accurate data to make adjustments on the fly. Other uses for this technology as it applies to solar sites are prospecting, prelimnary grading, as builts for payment, and as builts for the closeout ALTA survey.
Timothy Arnold, Terratek GPS Modeling
Increasing Asset Uptime with Aerial NDT Inspections
In this presentation several use cases will be presented of how drone inspection service providers maximize uptime and minimize risk for asset owners in the Energy industry by using novel drone technology to perform aerial NDT inspections at height. Background Non-destructive testing (NDT) is a well established technique to verify the integrity of industrial assets such as storage tanks, stacks or pipes. It includes contact-based testing to help evaluate the integrity of materials, such as steel, by detecting corrosion, erosion or inherent defects. NDT instruments are used by interfacing sensors with constant force against the material to be tested. Traditionally this is done with handheld devices. Using these instruments for measurements at height requires scaffolding, elevation platforms or rope access. All of these methods are time consuming, expensive and they often introduce safety risks. Impact Using drones to perform NDT measurements at height eliminates the need of scaffolding or rope access. Many inspections are 10x faster and they completely eliminate the need of exposing personnel at height. Many assets can even be inspected while being in service which eliminates costly downtime. Reduced crew size and equipment requirements further add to the efficiency gains.
Use case: Furnace stack wall thickness inspection Savings: Reduced crew size from 14 to 2, safely completed the work 24 days faster, and saved the client over $165,000
Reference: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/bilfingerinc_safeworkenvironment-bilfingerutdrones-droneinspections-activity-7095421477268713472-h_BA I
nnovation: Applying stable and constant force against a surface or object with a drone requires a novel kind of technology. Traditional multicopters aer not suitable for this kind of application. To apply force they need to pitch forward which makes them unstable. New, purpose-built drone designs were developed and first products for contact-based inspection were launched in 2022. Insights Within the last 18 months, Drone Inspection Service Providers in North America, Europe and APAC used aerial NDT inspection drones to make inspections for asset owners more efficient and safer. We will present the outcome of several use cases in the Energy industry including a deep dive of a particular use case in (https://youtu.be/-7DjwnNqM_s).
Laurent Zimmerli, Voliro and Courtland Penk, Osprey Integrity
