Power line survey and inspection
Transmission lines play a vital role in the stable and safe operation of the power system network. Meantime many of them were constructed decades before. Aging T&D infrastructure requires inspection, replacement and upgrade. Transmission line failures due to storms and ice covering, damaged conductors, line breakages due to excess sag, falling trees, and metal corrosion, despite the stringent maintenance schedules practiced by power companies. Traditional methods of pipeline inspection are time-consuming (robots) or expensive (helicopter inspection), and sometimes ineffective.
Unmanned aircraft vehicles equipped with cameras and UV-sensors have made a revolution in power line inspection. Whether it comes to routine inspection or to the catastrophic storm response, using drones helps to save time and money. UAVs also are very helpful for the wind turbine inspection. In both cases remote sensing provides reliable results without putting technicians in danger.
Zesmill has its own two rotary wing drones, quadrocopter and octocopter. The types of overhead line inspections Zesmill provide include:
- visual inspection
- high resolution imaging or HD video recording
- corona discharge detection using UV-camera
- condition assessment (circuit condition, integrity of insulators, corrosion of transmission towers, condition of stubs, vegetation).
Also Zesmill performs power engineering survey and inventory of overhead transmission lines and corridor topographic mapping. For these purposes our field engineers also employs state of the art technologies like LIDAR, aerial and UAV imaging, and digital photogrammetry along with tradition on ground on-ground geodetic measurements.
Our services include:
- corridor topographic survey at a scale 1:1,000-1:25,000
- conductor sag profiling (for each circuit)
- measuring heights and clearances
- transmission towers (poles) vertical deformation measurements with robotic total stations
- vegetation mapping
- corridor topographic survey for the new transmission and distribution lines construction, pre-feasibility studies, generating alternative routes by multicriteria GIS-evaluation
- GIS implementation for asset management in power companies.