Hotline of power engineering specialists:
Rosseti Centre and Rosseti Centre and Volga Region are expanding the practice of using unmanned aerial vehicles to improve the quality of planned and emergency inspections of 35-110 kV transmission lines.
The use of UAVs proved its effectiveness during the exercise to organize interaction and eliminate massive violations at power grid facilities in the Tver region in 2018. Now, such equipment begins to be actively used by specialists of diagnostics services of power transmission lines of many branches - Belgorodenergo, Udmurtenergo, Tulenergo, Vladimirenergo and others.
Diagnostic methods using UAVs allow to get reliable data on the technical condition of equipment, accurately plan repairs, clear and expand routes and ensure quality control of their performance, without involving a large number of production personnel and specialized equipment.
“The implementation of the digital transformation concept requires fundamentally new solutions from us for the daily operation and planning of the operation of the power grid infrastructure. Therefore, the next step should be the widespread use of unmanned vehicles fully automatically, without human intervention,” stressed General Director of Rosseti Centre - the managing organization of Rosseti Centre and Volga Region Igor Makovskiy.
In the near future, Rosseti Centre will complete the development of a software and hardware complex using an unmanned aerial vehicle for an automated overhead line surveillance system. An unmanned aerial vehicle with specialized outboard equipment is being tested at the production base of the branch “Lipetskenergo”. In addition to the usual camera with a shooting angle of 360 degrees, it is equipped with a thermal imager, which will detect hidden wire defects and insulation at an early stage. But the main advantage is that this complex works completely in automatic mode. Obtaining the task and unloading the diagnostic data received during the flight are made without human intervention.
“The use of innovative technologies will allow us to move to a new technological structure of the electrical grid, with qualitatively different characteristics of reliability, efficiency and controllability, where prediction and warning will replace the detection and elimination of faults,” added Igor Makovskiy in conclusion.
