Baltimore Gas & Electric
DRG’s remote sensing team processed LiDAR data to flag encroaching vegetation on BGE’s transmission lines, allowing the utility to quickly identify and remove potential hazards and avoid regulation violations.
The Challenge
Vegetation near or overlapping utility infrastructure can become a hazard that causes serious damage to equipment and customer outages. Staying on top of encroaching vegetation through routine maintenance and management plans help utilities avoid costly issues down the road.
Baltimore Gas and Electric (BGE) wanted to ensure they caught encroaching vegetation before it became a reliability issue. They called on their existing relationship with Davey Resource Group (DRG) to help create an efficient method that could spot potentially hazardous vegetation and quickly remove it.
The Solution
In the summer of 2023, BGE’s drone team gathered LiDAR data on 250 line miles of their transmission lines. Once the data was collected, DRG’s remote sensing team processed the data to flag encroaching vegetation that could become hazardous grow-ins and fall-ins. After processing the data, DRG uploaded it into their proprietary software, ResourceKeeper, for easy access to interactive maps and reporting features.
DRG was able to process the data in approximately 3 weeks. Their quick work allowed BGE to take swift action to mitigate encroaching vegetation, helping to avoid equipment damage to transmission structures, power outages, and regulation violations.
The Results
DRG completed data processing in mid-October 2023. BGE was pleased with the results, so they requested DRG process data on an additional 420 line miles in 2024.
Thanks in large part to DRG’s quick turnaround times for data processing, BGE is able to focus their workforce and budget on other critical challenges.
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