Protecting electrical lines, power plants, and other utility assets from unwanted vegetation is a matter of public safety: falling tree branches and overgrown brush near power lines can lead to outages, wildfire risk, and elevated hazards for people and property. However, traditional methods for decision-making around vegetation control could be more efficient and affordable, relying on cyclic scheduling and manual inspections.
The IBM® Environmental Intelligence Suite® Vegetation Management platform utilizes satellite data and Geiger-mode LiDAR predictive analytics combined with weather insights to deliver artificial intelligence-driven insights about vegetation growth so you can make more informed and proactive decisions about utility vegetation management. This cost-effective solution is built on a platform that processes:
- Complex geospatial and time-based datasets
- Applies AI and analytics to calculate and score the impact of vegetation
- Helps identify high-risk circuits or corridors that will benefit most from trimming or maintenance operations
The IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite helps managers and stakeholders better understand the current state of vegetation across a territory, including the average height and maximum tree height of trees. This understanding is crucial for identifying trees that might pose a threat to utility service and for summarizing vegetation encroachment in defined buffer zones around assets. The tool scales automatically, assessing vegetation growth across hundreds of miles of power lines and allowing tree pruning and tree removal work to be prioritized by corridors, segments and zones.
Researchers use satellite imagery and LiDAR data to evaluate spans of vegetation according to various metrics and KPIs, such as distance to a power conductor or amount of encroachment into a buffer zone. They assign scores to help identify and focus brush removal efforts. Users can build an integrated vegetation management plan by combining these insights with other layers of information to design custom dashboards, alerts and decision-making metrics and to export data as needed.
The tool provides insights on tree species that includes identification of hazard trees that present a fall risk, and it predicts areas where tree trimming might protect transmission lines and other assets. With dashboard views and alerts, managers can optimize preventative maintenance and trimming cycles, build proactive asset management strategies, rapidly respond and reduce the need for costly manual inspections.
Vegetation overgrowth can cost utilities billions of dollars and lead-to disruptive outages. Let’s see how utilities can use IBM Environmental Intelligent Suite and IBM Maximo to mitigate the problem.
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