E-REDES has made a significant investment in the development of innovative solutions for the management, maintenance, and monitoring of electricity networks, with a special focus on forest areas. The use of drones has been one of the most recent bets of the Company, with the expectation that this will be an important technological means of inspection of overhead electricity networks.
Developed in partnership with the company Hepta Airborne, the "GridDrone" project aims to test the use of drones with hybrid motorization to complement the current inspections carried out by helicopter. Started in January 2021, this pilot project has already enabled the inspection of approximately one thousand kilometers of medium and high voltage overhead grid in the districts of Coimbra and Viseu. The drones used in the project were able to collect daily data from 30 to 50 kilometers of the network, using LiDAR remote sensing optical technology to calculate the distances between lines and the surrounding vegetation and to perform 50 to 70 kilometers of visual and thermographic inspection to detect any hot spots and other defects.
Once the trial period for this new technological solution is over, where it will be analyzed whether the legislative framework and the solution have competitive technical and economic merit, E-REDES intends to incorporate these innovative means in its periodic inspections. It will thus be possible not only to increase the annual inspection capacity of the areas of the line under the responsibility of E-REDES, but also to ensure greater operational safety and, at the same time, contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in this activity. The increased efficiency and effectiveness of the inspection processes are an important contribution to improving the quality of the electricity distribution service provided by the Company.
In addition to the use of this technology for detailed inspection of overhead networks, E-REDES acquired a set of new drones and gave, with Labelec's support, flight training to its operational teams, for the control and operation of this equipment, with the aim of carrying out spot inspections of the networks more quickly and efficiently.
