Providing consistent power is a utility’s first and foremost responsibility. But as leaders at utilities across the U.S. know, that task is getting tougher all the time.
Across the U.S., aging infrastructure makes the delivery of reliable power increasingly expensive and dangerous. Extreme weather events, from ice storms to wildfires, are only compounding the problem. Meanwhile, long-term climate changes are impacting forests themselves, as tree health is damaged by drought or invasive pests that thrive in warmer temperatures.
At the same time, the electrification of transportation and buildings and the growth of data centers means that demand could triple within the coming couple of decades. To address these reliability challenges, utilities need new and innovative ways to manage their operations, and advanced remote sensing technologies hold the key. Data-driven decision-making gives utilities the opportunity to strategically mitigate risk and optimize their operations programs for reliability.
Vegetation is often the highest operational expenditure for utilities because it’s a leading cause of outages. Despite increases in digitalization and advanced analytics for utilities, vegetation management (VM) remains notably under-resourced in these areas. By leveraging remote sensing technologies and advanced analytics, utilities can better identify risks inside and outside of the right-of-way (ROW) and prioritize more impactful work. These insights equip them to take action to prevent outages and improve reliability.
Get a comprehensive view of changing conditions
Climate and weather changes are impacting forests and vegetation in new and different ways, and time-based inspection cycles can’t keep up with these changes. To fully understand the vegetation and encroachment risks facing their networks, utilities need a system-wide view of potential trouble spots so they can prioritize them. Remote sensing technologies like satellites and aerial imagery provide this systemic view, encompassing encroachment risks in the ROW but also larger-scale forest and landscape changes.
Equipped with this data, utilities can address vegetation risks before they cause an outage. Preventing or reducing outages translates directly to improved SAIDI and SAIFI scores for distribution operators. In Colorado, for example, electricity cooperative Holy Cross Energy is using satellite vegetation intelligence to achieve SAIDI/SAIFI scores in the top 10% of U.S. cooperatives.
Remote sensing data also supports transmission utilities in meeting FAC-003-4, notably by providing evidence of annual inspections and facilitating VM per Requirements 1, 2 and 7. These measures are critical for avoiding fines, penalties and costly repairs.
“Reliability, by definition, has to be a leading concern of utilities and their regulators,” says Neil Chatterjee, former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and senior advisor with Hogan Lovells. “That’s the real promise of remote sensing technologies and better data on vegetation conditions — the potential to save on costs without compromising reliability.”
Build predictability into your vegetation management program
This data-driven approach brings objectivity to what is too often a subjective process. For example, Overstory, a leading vegetation intelligence provider, develops risk frameworks using remote sensing technology data and a utility’s clearance specifications. These frameworks support data-based risk prioritization — they overcome variations that can happen with foot patrols, such as land access or even things as simple as a faulty rangefinder battery. Categorizing high-risk spans becomes standardized based on consistent measurements.
With a holistic measure of vegetation risks, utilities can manage their workloads more predictably. Optimizing labor hours to clear the riskiest areas and prioritizing truck rolls where they’re needed most saves on budget and improves reliability at the same time. Tackling risks before they cause an outage also protects workers and the larger community. Rather than have to repair dangerous downed power lines because of fallen trees, proactive VM prevents risky scenarios before they happen.
Data-driven VM also allows utilities and their contractors to develop more accurate work estimates. The visibility into vegetation risks and conditions is helpful for both parties to predict how much work needs to be done and what crews will encounter in the field, all of which build greater predictability into annual trimming efforts and operating budgets.
“Having objective data on vegetation conditions is invaluable for defining or justifying your spending,” Chatterjee says. “Utilities must optimize their budgets without causing issues later on, and network-scale data makes a huge difference.”
Future-proof your grid now
The U.S. saw a five-fold increase in billion-dollar severe storms between 2004 and 2023 compared to the preceding two decades. In 2023 alone, there were a record 28 billion-dollar weather disasters, including storms, floods and wildfires, which cost over $93 billion in damages. Utilities have no time to lose with grid-hardening measures to ensure reliability as climate instability increases.
For distribution providers, undergrounding power lines may be a viable strategy. Actionable vegetation intelligence can support the planning and cost-benefit analysis needed for these large-scale infrastructure upgrades by helping utilities to prioritize the riskiest areas and identify where moving lines underground would be worth the investment.
Entirely new strategies are also possible. Deloitte noted, for example, that Green Mountain Power has submitted a plan to regulators that would allow it to buy and install batteries in customers’ homes rather than running more lines and paying additional storm recovery costs to repair damaged infrastructure. These types of innovations will become more critical as vegetation risks evolve and demand on the grid increases.
New conditions require new approaches
“Utilities and their regulatory counterparts can be risk averse, and it’s understandable when reliability is on the line,” Chatterjee says. “But there is room in their toolboxes for these additional technologies. Once utilities see how the benefits outweigh the challenges of adopting new methods, it will fundamentally change their approach,” he explains.
Reliability will only become more important for powering the economy as electrification gains momentum. Amid climate change and infrastructure overhauls, utilities must leverage data and advanced analytics to navigate these large-scale changes and optimize their operations. Doing so will ensure vegetation management is streamlined, modernized and ready to power the 21st century.
Schedule a demo with Overstory to learn more about actionable vegetation intelligence.
