Endeavour Energy showcases 5G drones for electricity grid repair:
Endeavour Energy, together with Optus, Amazon Web Services, and Unleash live, has deployed its first 5G and AI-enabled drones to improve restoration times for unplanned electricity outages, particularly during natural disasters such as storms, floods, and bushfires.
As part of the first demonstration, Endeavour Energy flew the drones over physical electricity infrastructure located in Sydney's western suburb of St Marys. During the flyover, footage of damaged assets was streamed in real-time using 5G to Endeavour Energy's training ground in Hoxton Park.
With the demonstration a success, according to Optus, Endeavour Energy will now deploy the solution across infrastructure assets in Penrith and Blacktown, which would remove the need to use a large fleet of vehicles, helicopters, and technicians to physically identify and carry out remediation.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2022, @12:43PM (2 children)
the AI will determine that rather than thanklessly fixing supply, it need only fly around reducing demand.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2022, @01:07PM (1 child)
>> it need only fly around reducing demand.
TFA said nothing about the drones being armed.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2022, @03:39PM
vacuous zdnet article deserved flippant comment.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Frosty Piss on Monday April 11 2022, @01:22PM (1 child)
They flew the drone over some power substation. This is an earth shaking development, I must say I’ve never heard of this before. High marks!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by corey on Monday April 11 2022, @11:15PM
Yeah and being 5G, it must be amazing space age stuff!!!
Given Optus is mentioned (they’re a telco for those overseas, not a utility), this is a publicity stunt in my opinion, for their 5G network.
From what I know, fixes using drones isn’t new? I guess last time they used 4G to stream the video. Btw, I live rural and use 4G broadband for my home internet access. I have a couple of antennas on my roof pointing at the nearby tower and regularly get 70-80Mbps DL speed. Why speeds like this are not sufficient for the utility to stream video does go further to demonstrate this is a publicity/marketing ploy by Optus. 5G is much less accessible than 4G too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 11 2022, @02:55PM (7 children)
I like drones but I wonder how useful this is. Utilities know where breakages occur already, don't they? If you know where the outage is you send the trucks, and the trucks have everything they need to make repairs. Also, conditions that knock out electricity tend to be the conditions that drones can't fly in.
Maybe it's most useful for transmission lines that cross rugged terrain...?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by janrinok on Monday April 11 2022, @03:31PM (6 children)
At the moment, after a disaster it is necessary to look at where cables and towers are down in order to identify how much effort is required to restore the power. Currently that is done by sending teams out in vehicles to follow the cables to locate the areas needing repairs.
The use of drones is there to locate the problems so that the manpower can be used in the most economical way to achieve the maximum good. This was both cheaper and more effective because it "would remove the need to use a large fleet of vehicles, helicopters, and technicians to physically identify and carry out remediation". I'm not sure how the drones actually carry out 'remediation' but the company is responsible for "electricity network includes more than 60,000km of powerlines, 400,000 power poles and 32,000 substations" so the cost savings could be substantial.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 11 2022, @03:58PM
Drones not doing any remedy.
The demo was all about inspection and realtime eyeball over 5G. The worst these Drones could offer is cheaper than helicopter remote eyeballs, or best the 5G offers low latency for the AI back on AWS cloud to 'spot' the problem from many such drones. Still need the actual repair crew to drive/fly out to effect actual repair.
(Score: 4, Informative) by captain normal on Monday April 11 2022, @06:11PM
Indeed, here in California there have been long delays in restoring power after storms and large fires. The problem has not been lack of crews and materials but having people actually drive around hundreds (even thousands) of miles of plant to visually inspect damage. Aircraft such as planes and helicopters cannot get close enough to locate problem spots. I can see where a drone would be much faster in locating damage so that personal and equipment could be quickly dispatched to damage spots.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday April 11 2022, @06:30PM (3 children)
I'm a little surprised that the utilities don't have any better pinpoint capability than that. After all, it's not like a sensor network monitoring power lines tower to tower would have trouble with its power supply; if the power dies, the sensor's battery kicks in and sends an alert back along the daisy chain mesh network of other towers' sensors.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday April 12 2022, @12:25AM (2 children)
One of the more common reasons for AU power transmission failures is bushfires. I think any sensor cheap enough to string along towers like that is going to die well before the lines melt.
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 12 2022, @07:20PM (1 child)
So instead of normally quiet sensors that report problems, you use normally chatty ones that tell you everything's working. When one stops talking you know where there's a problem.
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Thursday April 14 2022, @11:01AM
That's an option, but really it's probably cheaper to just fly drones along the downed lines until you find the problem. Definitely cheaper than retrofitting all the existing lines. The drones also give you more info about the problem, how many poles are down etc. Sensors at most could give you "this pole is down, no communication beyond #37".
No problem is insoluble, but at Ksp = 2.943×10−25 Mercury Sulphide comes close.