DRG Helps Wild Rice Create Vegetation Management Plan Using ResourceKeeper

Wild Rice Electric Cooperative

DRG used aerial imagery, outage reports, and reliability data to create a vegetation management program in ResourceKeeper that prioritizes vegetation in high-outage areas for Wild Rice Electric Cooperative in Minnesota.

The Challenge

Wild Rice Electric Cooperative is a member-owned utility provider based in Mahnomen, MN. The cooperative maintains 3,650 miles of overhead and underground distribution lines throughout Mahnomen County and parts of Polk, Norman, Becker, Clay, and Clearwater Counties. 

With almost 12,000 members, the cooperative is responsible for powering a large number of homes and businesses in Northwestern Minnesota. Reliability is of utmost importance to Wild Rice, ensuring its members retain power in any weather condition.

As part of their efforts to reduce outages, Wild Rice Electric partnered with Davey Resource Group, Inc. (DRG) to develop a long-term vegetation management plan that pinpointed and mitigated encroachments on their distribution lines.

The Solution

In November 2024, DRG created a vegetation management plan using remote sensing technology in Wild Rice’s service area. Technicians obtained aerial imagery and ran it through machine learning tree interface algorithms that identified and classified infrastructure like trees and impervious surfaces. The 12-person team used ResourceKeeper, DRG’s proprietary workflow management system, to overlay that data on outage reports and reliability data provided by the cooperative to identify encroachments on lines and pinpoint areas where outages were most common.

DRG used this data to create an 8-year maintenance program that targeted areas with high volumes of outage reports.

The project took around 6 months to complete, a quick turnaround time that allowed Wild Rice to implement the plan as soon as possible.

The Results

Wild Rice recently completed its first year’s maintenance cycle. There were zero outages reported after a recent storm in the areas that had been worked using guidance provided by DRG.

“Davey’s analysis gave us a clear, system-wide picture of where vegetation is encroaching along our distribution lines. Their assessment provided the information we needed to build a systematic clearing program that improves reliability while staying within budget,” Mike Wade, CEO at Wild Rice Electric, said. “When a windstorm hit in June 2025, the right-of-way cleared this year saw zero impact from the storm. This helped our line crews restore power to our members in record time.”

With DRG’s ability to provide a comprehensive plan that incorporates factual data, Wild Rice can make informed decisions about how to approach its vegetation management, reducing outages and keeping its customers safe.

DRG used ResourceKeeper to combine aerial imagery, outage reports, and reliability data to identify encroachments on lines and pinpoint areas where outages were most common.

As part of their efforts to reduce outages, Wild Rice Electric partnered with DRG to develop a long-term vegetation management plan that pinpointed and mitigated encroachments on their distribution lines.

There were zero outages reported after a recent storm in the areas that had been worked using guidance provided by DRG.

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