Webinar: SAPN's Journey to EVLOS & Beyond
Published by
Alex Urquhart
on
SA Power Networks (SAPN) has pioneered the use of drone technology in the utility sector for many years, leading to a drastic reduction in costs and improvement in asset inspection efficiency.
This webinar will showcase SAPN’s remarkable journey of integrating drone technology into their operations, highlighting their progressive shift from basic surveillance to the pioneering Extended Visual Line of Sight (EVLOS) operations. (including a look at their signature Orange Drones!).
Discover how they navigated challenges and harnessed innovation to transform their service delivery.
Check out the full interview below!
Summary of Our Interview with Nick Hart:
Drones have the potential to revolutionize asset inspection in the utility industry by providing new capabilities, efficiencies, and higher quality data at a lower cost compared to traditional methods.
- SA Power Network's journey into utilizing drones for asset inspection has significantly expanded their drone fleet and use cases, providing a safer and more efficient alternative to traditional methods.
- SA Power Networks chose to license all 50 drone pilots, emphasizing the importance of fully training and licensing operators for long-term benefits and easier compliance.
- SA Power Network's drone pilots, who are also power line workers, have found that using drones for asset inspection is more efficient and cost-effective, resulting in significant cost savings and improved safety.
- Drones provide cost-effective, high-quality data for asset inspection, but visual line of sight limitations and regulatory challenges hinder their full potential.
- Drones used for extended line of sight power line inspections, with benefits for training, safety, risk management, and compliance.
- SA Power Network is testing Beyond Visual Line of Sight system for drone asset inspection, with potential for autonomous drones and future expansion.
- SA Power Network is using high-resolution drones for power line inspections, considering outsourcing as they expand, and exploring fixed-wing technology for longer distance surveys.
- SA Power Network is using AI and machine learning for asset inspection with drones, focusing on data management, agility in technology adaptation, increasing drone operations, and using processing programs like Bentley and DroneDeploy.
Q&A Additional Answers
Unfortunately, we ran out of time to answer everyone's questions at the end of webinar, however, Nick has been generous enough to follow up and answer them all below:
| Question | Answer |
| Hi Nick, have you adopted the new CASA template? | I'd have to take this on notice and speak to my CRP |
| How are you finding the approval of Flights from the field? One off flights to do an immediate inspections through the FlyFreely app | We've been working on auto approval based on certain parameters, hoping to have this live early in the new year |
| Are you applying any Computer Vision / Object Detection on the footage taken either online or offline to detect defects? Thanks. | I find footage is too low resolution, we are doing some object detection in photos post capture but not in real time. |
| What planned BAU inspections are currently running, do these replace traditional planned pole inspections? | we're running both, utilising drones for some targeted inspection programs, as well as auditing |
| What is your MAD / Distances from lines to drone that you are running at various distribution voltages? And how do you manage traffic control on road reserves / roadway operations | We manage risk through our ReOC and pilot inductions |
| Have you looked at insulator silicon application / washing in areas a helicopter can not reach? | We haven't looked at these types of use cases, we have done aerial marker installation and stringing though. |
| With such a large base of Remote Pilots how do you ensure your team are qualified and competent and adequately trained? | We have a senior pilot structure who oversee sub groups, we have auditing mechanisms as well, the data logging enables pretty good oversight too |
| Are all your operations manual flying? | Some missions are automatic, but majority are manual at this stage |
| Do you use Fly Freely as a means of building up your experience profile for later validation of different kinds of operations with the regulator? | FlyFreely provides a good data set for our operations |
| Our department has noticed a push towards UAS manufactured outside of China, is this something you are experiencing and what platforms are on your radar to replace your current fleet? | We have some customers that have restrictions however at this stage we are ok with running with DJI for now. As well as working with Australian manufacturers for future capability |
Have any questions or interested to see how FlyFreely might be able to help - Reach out to our team for more information.
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Blog (Educational)