As the planet warms, the frequency and size of forest fires is growing. This year by the end of July in Canada there were already nearly 900 separate forest fires.

Forest fires can be caused in various ways, through natural causes such as lightning but according to the US Forest Service 85% of forest fires are started by human activity.

In California six of the 20 largest forest fires to impact the start were caused by power lines, either by trees making contact with wires, or live wires falling onto the dry ground. This means power companies need to ensure that their network is always a safe distance from vegetation, not only to prevent fires, but also blackouts when storms cause trees around power lines to fall.

Traditional Vegetation Management

Historically, maintaining power lines and managing vegetation clearance was a labour-intensive and time-consuming process, involving foot patrols and manual inspections.  Power networks cover vast areas and so some power companies use helicopters to help monitor their network.

Robin Tutcher, the accountable manager for the helicopter unit at National Grid Electricity Distribution (NGED), the helicopter unit has existed since 1963. Without the helicopters Tutcher estimates it could take up to a decade to cover the entire network using foot patrols

“The kind of underlying principles of, of what we do today, and what they were doing in 1963 haven’t really changed a great deal. It is the proactive and reactive inspection of the overhead network. Obviously, the aircraft have changed quite considerably since 1963. And technology has changed a great deal since 1963. But the principles of what we do flying next to the overhead network are almost identical.” Says Tutcher.

The Power of Lidar and Data Processing

Although flying helicopters to monitor the network speeds the process up, it still relies on a visual inspection from the passenger seat.  To make better use of their helicopter patrols, NGED started adding sensors to the helicopters.

“We did a significant investment on the aircraft to install them with a lidar system, a multiple sensing camera, which is a tracker based system, the suite 400 that has a thermal camera, high definition video camera for stills camera. So little bits of tech that help us get around the network.” Explains Tutcher

These sensors are all collecting different useful pieces of data that can be accessed back at the base. 

The heat sensing cameras can detect small deviations in the line’s voltage, unseeable with the human eye. The LIDAR is collecting information on the entire power network and everything surrounding it, which can be used to make a 3D model of the network. And the still images can be used by operators to see what is happening along the power lines.

Interpreting the data

Having access to huge amounts of data doesn’t mean it is being utilised effectively. It requires tools that can visualise the data, which is where Fugro’s ROAMES technology comes in.

Shelby Coder is Fugro’s Geospatial Solution Owner and works with power network owners in Australia, where the ROAMES technology was first developed. ROAMES makes the data accessible to the network operators as Coder explains, “This is kind of where technology was several years ago, where it was common that somebody would just go collect LiDAR, and then just say, All right, here’s your Lidar and good luck, go figure out what to do with it. And you’re just staring at this just blank cloud of points, it doesn’t have any context. So with ROAMES we are taking that point cloud, and beginning a series of steps that are highly automated, but with additional quality control and assurance from humans, to extract more information from the point clouds, so what we’re doing is taking those points, and using them to create things like three dimensional models or representations of key features”

The ROAMES tool has lots of features that the operator can select from to view the data in the most useful way possible.

Chris Boreland is the Global Lead for the Power Service line at Fugro, and he has worked with NGED to help them start using ROAMES. “We can click a button at the bottom of the analytics, it loads up ROAMES world, and that’s the 3d visualisation tool. And then from there, you can click on the record that you want to see. And in analytics you’ll immediately fly into the 3d visualisation and then the 3d visualisation, you’ll start with, you’ll see the 3d network model. And you see the poles modelled out of that in the real world, how they look on the conductor’s there as well. And then you have other information that you can start to turn on. So you can turn on the imagery base, which looks at the images that’s taken at the same time, there’s a lidar, and then you could turn on the LIDAR itself.  And then that builds out the 3d environment of how one the model was created, but also then you can then see how maybe that ground clearance infringement has come about. It also then gives the operator that ability that if they want to go out and do another inspection, or they have to send a work crew to fix it.”

With the data being collected by the sensors on the helicopters, an operator can sit at a desk and view the entirety of the power network. From the poles to the wires and everything surrounding them, like roads, trees, or houses.

Advancements in Vegetation Management

The application of data-driven insights goes beyond visual inspections. Fugro’s ROAMES technology has been expanded to predict the need for vegetation management. “We’re now actually delivering information on the actual species of the tree, and also doing health indices of that tree as well. So that’s kind of giving them a little bit more of a 4d intelligence around the network as well.” Boreland says.

An operator will now also have information on how fast a tree species will grow and will get predictive information on when active vegetation management is required, and a contract team will be sent out to trim the tree back. This proactive approach enables utilities to plan and allocate resources effectively, reducing risks and minimising cost and the impact of wildfires.

The future of data collection

Although it is much more efficient than foot patrols, helicopters are still not providing 100% real time feedback 24/7. They also require crews of three to go out. Boreland believes that in the future drones, either autonomous or being operated remotely will be able to do some of the data collections,

Boreland explains, “There are large drones fleets, these drones, when I say large scale drones, these are the ones that you know, can maybe stay up in the air maybe for anything for up to 10 to 12 hours at a time. And that would allow us to develop sort of remote operation centres where you would have crews just sort of pilot in from again, the comfort of an office or a desk environment where they’ll actually be the aircraft will be up there the drones will be up surveying maybe wide areas or they might be actually down closer to the network doing asset condition inspection. But that improves the whole efficiency of the capture as well and just then improves overall costs that remote readers would have from there as well.”

Coder believes that there is another more optimised future of data collection. “Right now, we’re still doing this through remote sensing, meaning we’ve got a sensor on a platform that is removed from the assets themselves. If the platform or sensor was actually on the assets, and perhaps modelling the one next to it, and then able to not only collect that data, but somehow processing and make sense of it on this would be considered edge computing. And then just automatically updating an insights platform for clients that has already. The data has already been collected, processed, converted into analytics, and then really converted into something that actually makes sense that would be the endgame.”

In an era characterised by escalating wildfire risks and changing climate patterns, the integration of technology-driven solutions is imperative for safeguarding critical infrastructure like power networks. Through the innovative use of Lidar, advanced sensors, and data processing, power companies are not only enhancing efficiency but also proactively addressing the challenges posed by extreme weather events and wildfires. As these technologies continue to evolve, the potential applications expand across industries, underscoring the transformative power of data-driven asset management in the face of climate change.