Electric utilities commonly use trained foresters, traversing thousands of miles, to manually identify vegetation or other geographic hazards posing risks to transmission infrastructure. For one utility in the Western United States, the challenging terrain and accuracy limitations of laser range finders used to visually identify at-risk trees resulted in 1,424 trees assessed as requiring maintenance, potentially costing $200,000.
Months later, surveying the same assets using high-resolution LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) on fixed wing...
How to mitigate risk and ensure reliability BY SARA SANKOWICH, Unitil For most North American electric utilities, vegetation management (VM) is a critical part of system maintenance. Utilities strive to maintain normal conditions and ensure the system can withstand normal weather events. Even on a...
A coalition of large energy consumers and ratepayer advocates has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), urging the agency to prohibit transmission owners from independently planning "local" transmission projects exceeding 100 kilovolts (kV). The coalition argues...
Reduce common risks and maintain system reliability BY SARA SANKOWICH, Unitil Corporation Most North American electric utilities understand that vegetation management is a key factor in maintaining system reliability. While many utilities have designed and implemented vegetation management programs...
In a significant move that underscores the growing demand for reliable and sustainable energy to power the expanding digital infrastructure, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved an interconnection agreement between Talen Energy, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Exelon. This...
A coalition of large energy consumers and ratepayer advocates has filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), urging the agency to prohibit transmission owners from independently planning "local" transmission projects exceeding 100 kilovolts (kV). The coalition argues...
In a significant move that underscores the growing demand for reliable and sustainable energy to power the expanding digital infrastructure, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has approved an interconnection agreement between Talen Energy, Amazon Web Services (AWS), and Exelon. This...
As a utility, vegetation management is of the utmost importance – for ensuring transmission and distribution reliability and complying with complex North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) regulations for minimum vegetation clearance distance and facility...
Electric utilities commonly use trained foresters, traversing thousands of miles, to manually identify vegetation or other geographic hazards posing risks to transmission infrastructure. For one utility in the Western United States, the challenging terrain and accuracy limitations of laser range...
How to adopt best practices to improve reliability and reduce costs BY PHILIP CHARLTON, Utility Arborist Association Electric utilities have always faced the challenge of determining the optimum frequency of maintenance operations for the control of trees and brush growing near the electric system....
Using LiDAR technologies to enhance operations BY PHILIP CHARLTON, Utility Arborist Association In March 2014, utility vegetation managers from throughout North America gathered in Fort Worth, Texas to share their experience with the use of LiDAR (light detection and ranging) remote sensing...
