Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Specialists of Rosseti Centre Belgorodenergo began to examine overhead power lines using unmanned aerial vehicles. The first three quadrocopters came to the disposal of the diagnostic and power line services of the branch.
The UAVs are equipped with video cameras and provide a flight range of about 2 kilometres.
The new equipment was purchased to increase the efficiency of scheduled and emergency inspections of 35-110 kV power lines, since without involving a large number of equipment and personnel, it allows obtaining reliable data on the technical condition of equipment, accurately planning repairs, clearing and expansion of routes and ensuring their quality control fulfillment.
Eight Belgorodenergo’s employees underwent special training to control the devices. According to Dmitry Pyatigor, the head of Belgorodenergo’s power line service, flying around inaccessible areas is much faster than usual inspections. After that, the UAV operators themselves analyze in detail the footage in order to identify equipment defects, and power line specialists plan measures to eliminate them. “Routine monitoring of the condition of lines is carried out as a set. We check the condition of security zones, the existing dimensions of wires, the integrity of insulation, slopes of poles, the condition of dispatch names and other points,” he stressed.
In case of emergency outages, the use of drones allows to quickly determine the fault location on the disconnected line. As a result, the time to troubleshoot the malfunction is reduced.
