USA’s utility is going to use AI to digitize its power transmission system
USA: Company eSmart Systems will work with Topeka, Kansas-headquartered Evergy, to digitize Evergy’s power transmission system.
Image source: Electrek
USA: Company eSmart Systems will work with Topeka, Kansas-headquartered Evergy, to digitize Evergy’s power transmission system.
Norway-based eSmart Systems provides AI-powered solutions for the inspection and maintenance of critical infrastructure, while Topeka is an electric company serving more than 1.6 million customers in Kansas and Missouri,
eSmart Systems, which also works with Minneapolis-headquartered Xcel Energy and an unnamed “major public utility in the Southeast,” as well as many non-US utilities, will act as project management lead alongside engineering consultants EDM International, and GeoDigital, which will provide large-scale data acquisition and high-resolution image processing.
The three-and-a-half-year-long project will boost the reliability and resiliency of 14,484 km (9,000 mi) of Evergy’s power transmission system by creating a digital inventory of its assets, accelerating image analysis capabilities, and improving inspection accuracy by using virtual inspections and AI.
This is all expected to result in a significant reduction of costs for inspections, maintenance, and repairs.
eSmart Systems will use Grid Vision, which, as the company explains on its website, “tracks the performance of ongoing inspection work, provides instant insight of the location and severity of verified high-priority defects, and provides utility managers and analysts a deep and flexible framework for further asset intelligence.”
Riad Habib, senior vice president of energy and industry at Bureau Veritas North America, a global testing, inspection, and certification company headquartered in France, said about the use of AI for power transmission systems to Electrek: “We continue to see the need for a dynamic energy infrastructure to account for more efficient, safe, and reliable operations. AI and machine learning have been critical aspects to integrate into our high voltage transmission lines, supporting operators and improving reliability to the end users. AI also plays an important role in the shift of generation sources feeding our electric infrastructure, allowing for better balancing of the grid covering variable (solar, wind) sources as well as more fixed (hydro, nuclear) sources.”
Source: Electrek
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