Data Collection Innovation in West Virginia’s Energy Market
By Jacob Darrah
Drones have become a popular, commercialized concept over the last several years. Everyone has seen aerial footage taken by a drone, knows someone who owns a drone or has heard about their many uses. However, drones—also known as unmanned aerial systems (UAS)—play an important part in the engineering and field services industries, particularly in the energy sector.
These UAS consist of two pieces: an aerial vehicle and a sensor. The vehicles are continually evolving and have come a long way since early versions. With increasingly lighter builds, they can stay airborne longer and collect more data during each flight. The sensors mounted on the vehicle change based on the task at hand. The most common option is a high-resolution camera, which can be used for a variety of tasks, but other valuable options include light detection and ranging (LiDAR) sensors, multispectral sensors and leak detection sensors.
Over the last decade, the fast-paced innovation of this technology has helped shape the way the energy industry executes planning, maintenance and data collection. A significant benefit to this development is an increase in the industry’s safety, which is a continuous concern in the energy sector. Using UAS for data collection removes a large number of safety risks, meaning companies no longer need to put data collection crews in difficult terrain or hard-to-reach areas and can access active work sites entirely remotely.
Not only does this increase the safety of workers, but it creates a process that is inherently more efficient and accurate. Using an aerial vehicle removes the need for a person to physically go to every location that needs data collected, which can be thousands of points for a single project. Additionally, the information picked up by a UAS sensor is far more robust than that of on-the-ground surveying. A drone flight provides a dense point cloud that can have information collected from sites as little as one inch apart. This makes the space between data points much smaller, providing a larger quantity of information in a shorter timeframe.
This is particularly helpful in a place like the Mountain State. With a rich energy presence and wide range of landscapes, companies operating in West Virginia greatly benefit from using drone technology in their projects. Whether natural gas, electric, wind, solar or coal, there are innovative drone applications across the entire energy market.
Using Drones Across the Industry
One of the most effective applications of UAS is the use of LiDAR. LiDAR sensors are attached to a UAS and use light as a pulsed laser to gather measurements from the earth. They have a number of uses in the energy industry and are often utilized in West Virginia. They are particularly useful for collecting contour data of a potential project site, as they have been found to gather the highest-quality data for engineers to work with in their designs. Additionally, LiDAR sensors help with difficult-to-collect data, such as flying power lines to determine their heights and identifying potential tree obstructions for maintenance.
For operators of wind turbines, drone technology has proved useful for inspection purposes. A high-resolution optical zoom lens camera is often used to inspect the turbines for any abnormalities. A process that would traditionally be a dangerous and time-consuming job can now be completed by a skilled unmanned aerial vehicle pilot at a safe distance without ever touching the wind turbine. The photos collected by the drone can then be taken back to the office for closer inspection and identification of any issues present.
In the solar sector, the use of drones for thermal inspections has become common over the last few years. The thermal sensors are used to transfer thermal temperatures to visible light, allowing for thorough inspection and analysis of object temperatures. This is a crucial tool for the inspection of solar panels, helping to identify defective cells, which can cause a drop in energy production if left unrepaired. Using a UAS to perform these inspections has helped reduce their cost up to 40% compared to traditional inspection methods.
The coal industry also takes advantage of drone technology. One of the most common uses in this field is to create efficiencies for stockpile management. Coal companies can either use LiDAR sensors or develop terrain models based off aerial photos to more easily and safely calculate their inventories and keep track of the movement of their stockpiles.
While these are well established drone uses, more are being developed every day. One of the up-and-coming uses, for example, is using UAS technology for methane detection. A drone-mounted laser can absorb the methane of its target and produce readings of the air near the methane leak. Currently this method is most successful with natural gas compressor stations, where the leak location is well-known. As strides are made in sensor technology, there is potential to be able to find leaks on buried pipelines, which would prove incredibly beneficial in the natural gas world. The technology to detect leaks on buried pipelines is expanding. As of now, the UAS needs to be flown low to the ground, which does not allow for an efficient capture of information along West Virginia terrain.
As the laws catch up with the technology, another potential use of UAS is the concept of nested drones. These drones would be deployed from a charging station nest either via a remote manual start or by complete automation and run a pre-programmed flight pattern. With a large number of routine equipment inspections and construction monitoring needed in the energy industry, this nested drone technology would allow for regular data collection without the need for human interference, facilitating a more efficient and consistent stream of information.
Leading the Charge
While drone usage is quickly catching on in the energy industry as a whole, the UAS technology market in West Virginia is still relatively slim. Though there are countless energy projects going on in the state, there are a limited number of companies that are capable of providing these specialized drone services.
One company that is on the cutting edge of this work is The Thrasher Group, Inc. Based out of Bridgeport, WV, Thrasher has an entire geospatial department dedicated to helping clients—both energy focused and otherwise—develop strategies and workflows for drone usage in their projects. Thrasher’s team is well versed in UAS technology and has its own equipment in-house, including multiple vehicles with high-resolution cameras that are capable of collecting the wide range of data needed by the energy market.
One of Thrasher’s specialties is LiDAR collection. With the large amount of earthwork involved in energy projects and the difficult terrain of West Virginia’s hills, landslides and slips are a common occurrence. Thrasher’s team works to help repair these issues. By taking a LiDAR-mounted UAS to the site, Thrasher’s experts are able to safely and accurately collect data points from the landslide that are needed to design its repairs, all without ever physically touching the dirt or putting a person in harm’s way.
With companies like Thrasher leading the way, drone technology in West Virginia will only continue to expand. The innovation of UAS technology is ever-growing, and the future is bright for its application. As a state rich in natural resources and home to a difficult terrain, the Mountain State is the perfect place to watch the future of this industry unfold.
