Hotline of power engineering specialists:
The branch “Rosseti Centre Kostromaenergo” expands the practice of using unmanned aerial vehicles - quadrocopters for monitoring overhead power lines. They are used to examine 110 kV transit lines located in hard-to-reach and swampy areas in addition to their periodic top inspections.
Electricity supply of the regional and district centres, large settlements and city-forming enterprises of the Kostroma region is carried out along such lines. Among them there is the transit 110 kV overhead line “Nerekhta-Motordetal 1,2”, which feeds the large 110 kV node substation “Nerekhta-1” with transmission and redistribution of power to the Yaroslavl and Ivanovo power systems; the 110 kV overhead line “Zvezda-Zarya1,2”, which transmits electricity to one of the largest wood-based panel manufacturing plants in Russia, Kronostar LLC, as well as the 110 kV overhead line “Privolzhskaya-1,2”, which provides power to a large plant of OJSC Gazpromtrubinvest - Volgorechensky Pipe Plant and the city of Volgorechensk.
Now the Kostromaenergo branch has 4 quadrocopters DJI Phantom 4 Pro at its disposal. The flight range (up to 4 km) and the high speed of the drone (up to 60 km/h) make it possible in a short period of time to locate fault or perform an inspection on a large section of an overhead line. It is especially indispensable when it comes to mass blackouts of electric grid facilities in the region as a result of adverse meteorological phenomena. Among the advantages of unmanned aerial vehicles are short examination periods, the possibility of a detailed inspection of difficult places, and wide coverage of the territory.
From April to August, the power engineers have examined over 60 km of line sections using quadrocopters. Thanks to this, it was possible to identify and eliminate the causes of outages on 15 overhead lines of 35-110 kV.
“Overhead transit lines are the main arteries of power supply for residents of the Kostroma region. The use of quadrocopters allows ensuring the efficiency of production processes and increasing the reliability of power supply to the population and enterprises of the region,” stressed Acting First Deputy Director - Chief Engineer of the branch “Rosseti Centre Kostromaenergo” Alexander Chutkov.
