Discover 5 Top Drone Solutions impacting Utility Companies

Curious about new technological advancements in the utility sector? Explore our analysis of 678 global drone startups & scaleups and learn how their solutions impact your business!

Staying ahead of the technology curve means strengthening your competitive advantage. That is why we give you data-driven innovation insights into the utility sector. This time, you get to discover 5 hand-picked drone startups impacting utility companies.

Global Startup Heat Map highlights 5 Top Drone Startups impacting Utility Companies out of 678

The insights of this data-driven analysis are derived from the Big Data & Artificial Intelligence-powered StartUs Insights Discovery Platform, covering 2.093.000+ startups & scaleups globally. The platform gives you an exhaustive overview of emerging technologies & relevant startups within a specific field in just a few clicks.

The Global Startup Heat Map below reveals the distribution of the 678 exemplary startups & scaleups we analyzed for this research. Further, it highlights 5 drone startups that we hand-picked based on criteria such as founding year, location, funding raised, and more. You get to explore the solutions of these 5 startups & scaleups in this report. For insights on the other 673 drone solutions for utility companies, get in touch.

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My Drone Services enables Remote Utility Asset Maintenance

The utility industry requires widely distributed and remote assets. While periodical inspections are important to maintain these assets, ground-based inspection puts the lives of workers at risk and also is prone to human error. As a result, startups are deploying drones to perform remote visual inspections. Drones identify vegetation encroachment, defective equipment, leakage, and overheating to optimize maintenance and prevent damages.

US-based startup My Drone Services offers remote utility asset maintenance with drones. The startup’s drones use corona and high-resolution cameras to provide a detailed picture of the condition of the equipment on the telecom towers and power lines. The drones also use radiometric thermal cameras to measure the temperature of every single pixel on the screen, providing precise measurements. Additionally, the startup inspects structural integrity, corrosion, and security, and detects leaks in gas pipelines.

BRAQ Industries offers Drone-based Power Infrastructure Inspections

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) enable better visual inspections of power transmission and distribution infrastructures than ground-based inspections. Drones are able to transmit images and video feeds with zooming, thermal imaging, and 4k resolution capabilities to the ground control stations. Additionally, drones use thermal and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) to inspect and monitor the corridor for power lines and towers.

BRAQ Industries is a Saudi Arabian startup that provides UAV-based inspection for power infrastructures and the oil & gas industry. The startup’s UAVs use high-resolution cameras to detect corona and partial discharges around high voltage overhead transmission or distribution installations. Flights over electric substations identify hot spots, poor connections, damaged components, and security concerns before they lead to equipment failure. The startup also provides corridor mapping services, enabling utility companies to assess areas for new infrastructure.

Above provides Asset Anomaly Detection

Solar plants usually consist of numerous photovoltaic (PV) panels that are spread over a large area. Manual inspection of each panel, as well as the overall site, is currently cumbersome. To ease this process, startups offer drone-based inspections to detect visual as well as thermal anomalies in solar modules. Drones also facilitate topographic mapping for better planning of solar plant installation.

British startup Above uses drones for utility asset anomaly detection. The drones collect ultra-high-definition (UHD) aerial images and videos of the solar assets. This helps to identify visual anomalies, such as delamination and snail trails, as well as the state of each solar module, to track their degradation. Moreover, thermographic and HD inspections using drone-mounted sensors and cameras identify issues in a solar plant well in advance. The drones also enable aerial topographic mapping to identify potential sources of shading like mountains.

DroneLogix advances Aerial Wind Turbine Inspections

Traditionally, wind turbine inspections involve an inspector crawling into a blade to collect visual information. This is not only dangerous and time-consuming but does not guarantee the collection of accurate data. To resolve this, startups are deploying drones to inspect wind turbines. Besides routine monitoring, thermal imaging cameras allow drones to detect subsurface defects, including faulty bonding in web-flange joints and shrinkage cavities.

DroneLogix is a US-based startup that enables aerial wind turbine inspections. It uses drone-based digital video and photographic capture to detect hub nose defects and monitor blade health. Moreover, the startup offers thermographic inspection via infrared thermography to detect structural defects and weaknesses in the blade. This allows utility companies to fix the defects before they lead to severe consequences or break down completely.

Ascend UAV provides Utility Asset Inspection

UAV inspection of utility assets ensures safety as well as saves time. The latter becomes important to reduce operational costs and losses. For instance, it eliminates the need to shut down the wind turbines during an inspection. Thus, to cut down the inspection duration and ensure the safety of inspectors, startups are conducting drone-based inspections.

Canadian startup Ascend UAV uses drone-based inspection for utility assets, including powerlines, wind turbines, solar panels, and communication towers. With up to 30x zoom capability and thermal imaging, the startup’s drones detect unseen deficiencies in power insulators as well as spot defects in communication towers. Since the drones do not rely on a magnetic compass for direction, they are suitable for use in places with high electromagnetic interference. The startup also offers solutions to track thermal hot spots on solar panels and anomalies in wind turbine wiring.

Discover more Drone Startups

Drone startups such as the examples highlighted in this report focus on enabling inspection and maintenance solutions for utility assets as well as for anomaly detection. While all of these technologies play a major role in advancing utility management, they only represent the tip of the iceberg. To explore more technology solutions for utility companies, simply get in touch to let us look into your areas of interest. For a more general overview, you can download one of our free Industry Innovation Reports to save your time and improve strategic decision-making.

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