REGINA – SaskPower showed off the newest addition to its team Tuesday.
The Crown corporation has invested in a $25,000 drone with an infrared camera.
It takes two employees to fly it, has a one mile range and about 25 minutes of flight time.
They must fly it below 150 metres to comply with federal aviation regulations and, so far, they’ve only flown it over property they own.
Workers say it allows them to inspect potential broken equipment, switching stations, or downed power lines from the ground. This gives them a better idea of what’s wrong before they dive in.
“We can take our pictures and zoom right in to a have a look at how our contacts are, and the status of the equipment,” said George Pyne, SaskPower transmission line manager.
“That leads to better reliability. Not the kind of guessing from the ground we used to do.”
The drone was purchased in November.
Pyne says they’ve found “hot spots” that otherwise would’ve gone unnoticed. It also proved useful during the floods for inspecting power lines that were partially underwater.
Currently, SaskPower only owns one drone but Pyne says they hope to acquire a second for one of their crews in northern Saskatchewan.
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