Right now, governments all around the world are focused on the reliability of their power grid. Aging infrastructure is a problem not only in the United States, but around the world, and there are power grids in certain corners that are being put to their limits. With climate change continuing to rear its ugly head in the form of both extreme heat and extreme cold, people having access to reliable power is quite literally a matter of life and death. Add in the continued growth around AI leading to massive power demands, and our grids are being tested like never before.
There are a lot of ways to react to this reality, but one of the clearest responses needs to be a recognition that frequent and accurate inspections are vital for supplying the necessary power to the relevant parties. The good news on that front is that it’s becoming easier than ever to efficiently perform these inspections thanks to improvements with both hardware – such as cheaper drones and more powerful sensors – as well as software often powered by the aforementioned AI.
On the latter side of that equation, OFIL Systems – who to this point has generally focused on hardware to collect inspection imagery – just this week announced a new product release designed to more easily analyze data coming in from these power grid inspections. The software, known as Gridnostic, is described by the company as providing a “holistic view” that “relies on raw field data, presenting detailed diagnostics onto a GIS platform to boost reliability, efficiency, and worker safety.”
As OFIL notes in their release of this news, right now most utility companies are indeed relying on imagery for their inspections. There is obvious value to this, but imagery alone doesn’t provide the necessary information to efficiently complete these inspections and derive real value as they lack crucial context. It’s this problem that Gridnostic is aiming to resolve, placing raw data and automated insights into spatially accurate GIS platforms. The company partnered with Scopito for this product release, leveraging their “data management capabilities.”
Find a demo video of the product below:
Although there are certainly utility owners who are already tying imagery to GIS maps, where OFIL is looking to separate themselves is with the the insights in part as a result of their partnering with Scoptio. A big example of this is what they’re calling a “smart severity score,” which will be placed directly in the map. The automatically generated score will indicate on the GIS platform what portion of a utility needs the most immediate attention, with color-coded circles grading the severity of potential issues.
Crucially, they note that deriving this value shouldn’t require any changes on the data collection side of operations. This can be significant for these utilities, as one of the downsides to changing workflows – even when the new workflow will result in more ROI – is the onboarding of employees to the new processes. Given the extreme demand on these utilities mentioned at the top, that onboarding time can be more significant to overall production than what one might immediately assume.
There have been customers who have already been able to try Gridnostic, including Energinet, the owner and operator of Denmark’s transmission lines. In a statement, Special Emergency Preparedness and Maintenance DK2 of Energinet said, “We faced challenges in analyzing and storing UV video data from our drone inspections, which are crucial for maintaining our transmission towers. Integrating OFIL's Gridnostic enabled us to seamlessly manage and analyze this data alongside existing inspection data, ensuring precise and efficient maintenance operations.”
OFIL indicates that the version of Gridnostic that is available now will continue to be updated as they incorporate “evolving data” into its analysis capabilities.
"Historically, decision-making for high and medium voltage power line inspections has relied on substantial amounts of field data that were subjectively analyzed, poorly managed, and unsuitable for long-term trend analysis," said Giora Levi, CEO of OFIL, in a statement. "Intelligently analyzing findings and prioritizing activities means stakeholders have what they need to avoid failures and disruptions."
