Inspection Drones Monitor Utility Structures to Prevent Wildfires

In the first six months of 2021, Cyberhawk has completed more than 22,000 drone flights to inspect nearly 25,000 electric utility structures in the Western U.S. as part of critical wildfire prevention and reliability campaigns for utilities. 

With this initiative, Cyberhawk has now expanded into the U.S. market to help utilities maintain safe and resilient power grid networks.

70% of U.S. transmission lines are more than 25 years old, so inspecting and maintaining these aging power grids is especially important when it comes to mitigating the risk of wildfires.

In 2020, Cyberhawk initiated a program that will eventually carry out drone inspections of over 50,000 transmission structures, as well as collect and manage terabytes of inspection data for a large Western utility. 

Through defect identification, maintenance planning, and the tracking of remedial actions, Cyberhawk enables its utility partners to make better informed decisions regarding planning maintenance and assessing whether shutoffs are necessary. 

This leads to reduced risk, downtime, environmental impact and costs. Personnel safety is increased by removing the need for linemen to work at height, near live lines, or in generally hazardous areas and removing the need to use helicopters.

Cyberhawk deploys highly-skilled, certified drone pilots who have completed a training regime specific to Cyberhawk’s customers’ needs in addition to their FAA licensing requirements to ensure data quality and efficient operations that minimize the need for re-inspections. 

“All utilities are responsible for maintaining safe and reliable power delivery for homes and businesses,” said Chris Fleming, Cyberhawk CEO. 

“As part of a comprehensive wildfire prevention and grid reliability program, our trusted drone-based inspection services keep the lights on and communities safe while reducing risk to utilities.” 

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