Infrastructure Inspections to Prepare for Extreme Weather Events

6-minute read

In this article:

• Insights into the impact of various extreme weather events on electric utilities.
• An introduction to Clearsight’s advanced digital inspection solution.
• Understanding the importance of data-driven decisions in infrastructure resilience.

Electricity is crucial for various essential aspects of daily life, including our homes, workplaces, schools, and hospitals. At the same time, America’s electric infrastructure faces unprecedented challenges.

With the severity and frequency of extreme weather events on the rise, grid hardening, also called storm hardening, continues to be an important topic of discussion in the energy industry. According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), nearly 70% of the nation’s grid is more than 25 years old.

Record-breaking temperatures and increasingly intense storms leave our nation’s aging infrastructure quite vulnerable. By implementing an end-to-end grid hardening program, utilities can better protect infrastructure and improve levels of service in the event of extreme weather.

One strategy for grid hardening of our electric infrastructure during extreme weather events, such as record-breaking heat temperatures and hurricanes, involves advanced and proactive infrastructure inspections.

This article highlights the advantages of incorporating an advanced digital inspection solution, such as Constellation Clearsight, into your utility management protocols.

Impact of Extreme Weather Events on Electric Utilities

Let’s explore various types of extreme weather conditions that significantly affect electric infrastructure. Each category of extreme weather presents distinctive challenges for our electric utilities and cooperatives, and we’ll classify them according to the seasons in which they typically occur:

Spring:

• Thunderstorms: Thunderstorms can bring heavy rain, lightning, and strong winds. These storms can cause power outages due to lightning strikes, fallen trees or branches, and wind damage to power lines.
• Tornadoes: Tornadoes can cause extensive damage to power infrastructure, leading to widespread power outages.
• Wildfires: Wildfires can occur in different seasons, but predominantly occur in late spring and summer. They can damage or destroy power lines, poles, and substations, disrupting power distribution, and may be sparked by electrical infrastructure itself if not properly maintained.
• Floods: Floods can potentially pose a risk due to the combination of water and electricity. Flooding may lead to power outages, primarily caused by damage to substations and transformers. While equipment in flood-prone areas is typically designed to withstand submersion in water, it is essential to exercise caution.

Summer:

• Hurricanes/Tropical Cyclones: This weather phenomenon brings not only high-speed winds but also often heavy rainfall. This combination can damage power lines, substations, and other critical electrical infrastructure, making proactive storm hardening of your grid vital.
• Heatwaves: Heatwaves can put a strain on electric utilities due to the increased demand for air conditioning leading to higher electricity usage. This higher usage has the potential to overwhelm power grids causing power outages (or brownouts) due to equipment failures or overheating.
• Hailstorms: Large hailstones can break power lines, transformers, or other equipment, resulting in localized power outages.
• Droughts: Droughts can impact electric utilities indirectly. Reduced water availability can affect hydroelectric power generation, leading to decreased electricity output from hydroelectric plants. Utilities may need to rely more on other sources of power generation, potentially affecting energy costs and supply.
• Dust Storms: Dust storms, often associated with arid and semi-arid regions, can occur throughout the year but are more common in late spring and summer when dry conditions and strong winds prevail. They can interfere with transmission lines, contaminate insulators, reduce solar panel efficiency, and cause equipment damage to electric utilities.

Fall:

• Cold Snaps: Cold snaps can occur in fall, bringing sudden drops in temperature. Extreme cold can strain electric utilities as heating demands increase. Power outages may occur due to equipment failures or increased strain on power systems.

Winter:

• Blizzards/Winter Storms: Winter storms and blizzards can cause significant disruptions to electric utilities. Heavy snowfall and ice accumulation on power lines have the potential to cause them to break. Additionally, winter storms can cause tree limbs to fall on lines and equipment, leading to outages.

How to Prevent Power Outages and Improve Public Safety with Inspections

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Severe weather events can impose significant strain on electric utilities, necessitating swift response and restoration efforts. 

For many stakeholders in electric infrastructure, it has become a daunting task, leaving them with the question: How can one prepare for and mitigate the impact of extreme weather events?

Constellation Clearsight aims to address this question by assisting electric utilities and cooperatives in enhancing infrastructure resilience for extreme weather events in various ways.

Constellation Clearsight: A New Horizon in Infrastructure Inspection

Here are the key methods we employ to help electric utilities and cooperatives increase their infrastructure resilience for extreme weather events:

• Enhanced Inspection Capabilities: Traditional inspection methods can be time-consuming, labor-intensive, and may not provide a comprehensive view of the entire infrastructure. By employing drone technology, Clearsight delivers more thorough inspections in a fraction of the time, aiding in the identification of potential weaknesses.
• Valuable Insights: Using drones equipped with high-resolution cameras, detailed data is captured from your entire system – even from hard-to-reach areas. This data allows you to take preventive measures for your system. It also helps you to forecast the location for your next targeted infrastructure upgrade.
• Data-Driven Decisions: By analyzing the data collected through inspections, Clearsight provides valuable and actionable insights to guide the decision-making process. This data aids in everything from establishing effective maintenance schedules to planning infrastructure upgrades. Moreover, it can help utilities develop more effective disaster response strategies, helping you be prepared when extreme weather events occur.

Clearsight increases the ability of utilities and cooperatives to prepare for extreme weather conditions, mitigating the potential impact on both the infrastructure and your customers. 

While we cannot entirely prevent system failures due to natural causes, embracing innovative technology allows you to prepare thoroughly, aiming to withstand any adverse weather conditions.

Bottom Line

Extreme weather events are becoming the “new normal.” Nevertheless, by incorporating advanced digital inspection solutions, such as those provided by Clearsight, into your utility management protocols, you are equipped with the data you need to bolster the resilience of your infrastructure, even when confronted with extreme weather.