At Esri’s GIS and Infrastructure Management conference in Palm Springs, Calif., Oct. 28-30, major utilities like PG&E showed how they’re using geographic information systems when working with contractors and design firms as consultants to help them manage asset and maintenance needs.
Consultant EDM International has worked for companies like Power New Mexico on initiatives such as how to better predict and prevent wildfire damage.
“You first need to identify where the fire risk is in your landscape,” says Greg Brenton, UAS coordinator and EDM pilot. “Then [you can]identify where your feeders intersect with those wildfire risk sites. We use the H3 spatial indexing system developed by Uber to collect wildfire risk model output in a way that makes sense.”
Within the EDM system, each grid cell has a risk score based on weighted values of wildfire output data. Risk factors could be anything from damaged poles to overgrowing leaves from a transmission station. After the EDM assigns global risk scores to each cell, it can visualize these areas on a GIS map.
Power Engineers, a subsidiary of WSP, developed a GIS platform and digital twin to automate and streamline the way it collected construction field data, managed site inspections and generated construction reports and approvals for a utility that manages assets from the Canadian border to New York City.
“Since deploying this platform, we’ve supported more than 200 users as inspectors, construction managers and report reviewers,” says Sherri Hasting, director of shared services at Power Engineers.
