
A High-Flying Eye
Drones Help Local Crews Inspect Infrastructure
Alongside a narrow driveway under a tall canopy of oaks and pines in Rankin County, Mississippi, Jerry Parker was learning the ins and outs of flight crewing from an FAA-certified pilot.
“You’re going to be my visual observer today,” Chad Wilson said.
Parker nodded.
As both men turned to the preflight checklists, the aircraft awaited on the tailgate of Wilson’s Dodge Ram 1500.
“What I’ll need you to do is keep an eye on the drone while it’s up,” Wilson said. “We have to keep visual contact. Tell me if I’m getting close to trees, power lines, poles – any hazards you see.”
Wilson, a principal power utilization engineer for the Tennessee Valley Authority, has spearheaded a new program that deploys drones to help local power companies inspect their infrastructure.
In just its first few months, the program has already generated high demand for inspections of distribution lines, power poles and substations.
TVA’s Chad Wilson, left, and Jerry Parker of Mississippi’s Central Electric Power Association monitor a takeoff.
Dead-end Crossarms
On this Tuesday morning, Wilson and Parker were on a mission to examine power pole crossarms for Mississippi’s Central Electric Power Association, a 38,000-member cooperative where Parker is an assistant branch manager.
Crossarms are mounted horizontally on power poles.
Dead-end crossarms – the type Wilson and Parker were inspecting – are used on poles where a distribution line either ends or makes a turn, such as at a road crossing.
“These are typically at your critical junctions,” Allyson Kirkwood, Central Electric’s director of engineering, said.
And they bear large, heavy wires.
That makes each dead-end crossarm tremendously important.
With the drone’s zoom camera, Parker and Wilson were looking for moss, rot and cracks.
“It may look good from the ground,” Parker said, “but the top may be rotten.”
The drone allowed them to reach the crossarms – some on unpaved terrain – far more easily than other options, Parker said.
To position a bucket truck, mats would have had to be laid out to protect the ground and keep the vehicle from getting stuck in the mud. A track machine with a one-person bucket could have crossed soft ground, but the boom wouldn’t have reached all the crossarms.
The biggest advantage of the drone is its efficiency.
From the first buzz of its propellers on its orange landing pad to its return to base, the drone can inspect each crossarm in just a few minutes.
“By doing this, you save a lot of time and manpower,” Parker said.
The drone hovers to photograph a dead-end crossarm in Rankin County.
Matching Funds
The drone inspections fall under a matching funds program TVA offers its 153 local power company partners.
Known as the Comprehensive Services Program, it allows each local utility to set up a budget for engineering services from TVA experts.
“Whatever they contribute, we will match dollar for dollar up to a maximum amount,” said Chari Buckner, director of customer relations for TVA’s East Region, which serves 39 local power companies in East Tennessee and parts of North Carolina, Virginia and Georgia.
“Some local power companies can't afford to keep a specialized engineer on staff when they only need their expertise once or twice a year,” Buckner said.
The program gives participants access to a menu of expert services, including energy audits, power quality analyses, compressed air leak detection, infrared scans and investigation of high bill complaints and meter problems.
And now, drone inspections.
Drone inspections are being added to the menu of services TVA offers local power companies.
Ramping Up
To help meet demand, TVA Aviation Services recently trained another five engineers as drone pilots. Like Wilson, they are licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
First in line for drone inspections was Gibson Electric Membership Corporation, serving about 40,000 customers across 12 counties in northwestern Tennessee and western Kentucky.
The scan of a 6-mile transmission line from Alamo to Maury City, Tennessee, found some items to note, such as chipped insulators, lightning and woodpecker damage, rusty hardware and vine growth on some of the 74 poles. Thankfully, the issues weren’t critical.
A crew including Wilson and several drone pilots from Aviation Services managed to inspect a second, longer transmission line – almost 450 structures – in just a few days.
Barry Smith, vice president of engineering and operations, said Gibson plans to use drones to replace its helicopter-based inspection program, which was suspended during the pandemic.
With helicopter inspections, sight lines were limited, Smith said, whereas the drone can get photos from multiple angles. And the photos are compiled into a useful report – without his staff needing to ride in the chopper taking notes.
“You’ve got this documented information to make changes and improvements to the system,” Smith said.
The tailgate of Wilson’s Dodge Ram 1500 is the flight crew’s base of operations.
‘A Lifesaver’
At Central Electric, drone inspection results showed a small percentage of the crossarms would need follow-up.
“We’ll send a crew out, and once they get up there in the bucket, if they do believe it’s sound, we’ll move on to the next one,” engineering director Kirkwood said.
Each crossarm that actually does need to be replaced will require a day of crew time.
It’s a big job for Central Electric, she said, but the drone-assisted preliminary inspections have been “a lifesaver.”
“I can’t even begin to guess how long it would have taken us had we had to send crews out – and then you’re pulling crews off another job to do inspections rather than getting our construction work done,” Kirkwood said.
The program is a win-win, said Wilson, who serves 51 local power companies in TVA’s West and Southwest regions, covering Mississippi and parts of Tennessee and Kentucky.
“The drones give us the ability to be more efficient, to be safer, to give us a wider view,” he said.
For instance, infrared photography from a drone – rather than a handheld camera – lets engineers see more broadly where heat is lost or gained, which can help pinpoint money-saving energy efficiency steps.
And when data is needed from rooftop HVAC equipment, it’s safer to send a drone than an engineer.
With new applications for drone-based engineering services growing quickly, Wilson added, the sky is the limit.
“We have just begun to tap into the opportunities.”
Photo Gallery
Wilson, a principal power utilization engineer at TVA, spearheaded the new drone inspection program.
The drone can complete a crossarm inspection in just a few minutes.
As visual observer, Parker keeps sight of the drone at all times so Wilson can look at the controls as needed.
The drone crew must maintain safe distance from trees and other hazards.
Central Electric Power Association, a cooperative, serves 38,000 members in central Mississippi.
PHOTO AT TOP OF PAGE: Drones are helping local power companies save money and time on infrastructure inspections.