The word “regulation” may not trigger images of trees and vegetation for utility leaders — but perhaps it should. Vegetation management is critical to system reliability and uptime. According to a recent CNUC survey, utilities reported that vegetation was responsible for nearly 25% of outages, and they listed reliability and risk reduction as the most important reasons for clearing trees.

Vegetation management therefore impacts how utilities respond to regulations on encroachment risks and reliability, and it plays an important role in addressing liabilities. To meet regulations and keep up with increased storm and wildfire activity, utilities need new strategies for what have traditionally been manual operations. Foot patrols and visual inspections must be augmented with remote sensing technologies and advanced analytics to ensure a system-level view of vegetation risks.

“The big difference with today’s remote sensing technologies is that they provide full network-scale data, which has tremendous value,” says Neil Chatterjee, former Chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and senior advisor with Hogan Lovells.

More actionable data allows utilities to make better-informed decisions about maintenance work that can impact compliance and liabilities. Crucially, it’s not simply a greater volume of data that makes the difference — it’s the quality analysis of that data that equips utilities to meet regulatory requirements.

Data-driven frameworks prioritize risks

To address vegetation risks proactively, utilities must first know which spans are most likely to cause damage or an outage. Satellite and aerial imagery, as well as other remote sensing technologies, can be combined with artificial intelligence to provide insights on the highest-risk areas so they can be trimmed before an issue occurs. A machine learning outage prediction model, for example, demonstrated that data-driven vegetation management reduced high-risk spots by up to 42.5%.

Utilities don’t need to develop their own predictive models, however, to make informed vegetation management decisions. Vegetation intelligence providers such as Overstory offer affordable alternatives that combine industry-leading remote sensing and AI tech with risk frameworks configured to a utility’s particular trim specifications. These equip utilities with actionable insights for efficiently prioritizing and mitigating vegetation risks. 

“If you understand the true risks you’re facing and how they may have changed from years past — due to climate change or changing wildfire risk profiles — then you have the ability to prevent an outage before it happens, which can improve your reliability,” says Karim Al-Khafaji, Head of Business Development with Overstory.

Objective insights increase transparency with regulators

Regulatory agencies are focused on better reliability for customers, and utilities can more easily quantify their efforts to improve reliability by bringing objective data to discussions with regulators. Rate cases, for example, can be bolstered by vegetation intelligence that demonstrates utilities are taking proactive measures to prevent outages. 

“Any PUC would be hard-pressed to approve a rate increase if the utility has a poor track record on reliability or if there isn’t a connection between proposed spending and performance improvements,” Chatterjee says. Objective data via all available remote sensing technologies provides the transparency that stakeholders need for productive discussions.

Vegetation intelligence, which combines objective remote sensing data with things like reliability forecasts and wildfire risk maps, can help justify necessary spending in O&M budgets. “Everyone has been hit hard by inflation, and PUCs are being cautious,” Al-Khafaji says. “Explaining why the budget dollars are necessary and how the consumer will benefit strengthens the case for increasing your vegetation management budget,” he adds.

For transmission utilities subject to FAC-003-4, remote sensing technologies help utilities efficiently meet annual inspection requirements. The regulation does not stipulate a certain methodology nor rule out any particular technologies. 

But the cost and time savings and the accuracy of satellites and other remote sensing technologies are game-changers: “Estimating radial distances in a helicopter flying over spans is really challenging, to say the least,” says Chatterjee. “Utilities will benefit from proposing new inspection technologies. Once they see the value and how the benefits outweigh the costs, these may even become the standard of accuracy.”

Surpassing industry best practices reduces liabilities

Utilities know all too well the liabilities they face from equipment malfunctions, wildfire risks and more. Not all risks can be avoided, of course, but utilities must leverage every tool at their disposal to identify and mitigate risks in their network. 

“There is an old saying that you can’t manage what you don’t measure,” Al-Khafaji says. By leveraging satellites and other remote sensing technologies, utilities prove they’re measuring and prioritizing risks, and they equip themselves with data showing how they’re addressing those risks. “These technologies show the maintenance work done over time to reduce vegetation-based risks,” Al-Khafaji explains.

These data-driven insights are valuable to the insurance community, investors and regulators. They demonstrate that a utility is meeting and even exceeding industry best practices by combining cutting-edge technology and human expertise to proactively classify and tackle vegetation risks. 

“We’ve seen indications that credit agencies, lenders and other stakeholders want evidence of best practices in vegetation management and operational technology adoption,” Chatterjee says. “The key is demonstrating the connection between your vegetation management approach and ratepayer benefits such as improved reliability.” 

Data-driven, actionable vegetation intelligence equips utilities with defensible maintenance strategies — not ones based on hunches but rather on quality data and analysis. 

Leveraging better data to accomplish shared goals

Regulatory agencies typically rely on the data utilities share, but they also must verify that information to protect the public interest. By bringing data from remote sensing technologies and advanced analytics to the table, utilities can partner with PUCs, regulators, insurers and others to improve access to safe, reliable utility infrastructure and services.

Fortunately, implementing these advanced technologies doesn’t require a giant leap into the unknown. Starting with objective data makes it easier for utilities to take an iterative, informed approach to innovation: “Start with a bench-scale pilot to understand how the technology works and any constraints,” Chatterjee advises. “Then move into a field-scale trial to identify what business problems this method can address — that is where it makes a real difference.”

By leveraging remote sensing technologies and advanced vegetation intelligence, utilities can more effectively prove they’re meeting regulations and taking all possible steps to provide safe, reliable power to their customers. It’s impossible to avoid all risks, but with strategic, data-driven vegetation management, utilities can build effective long-term relationships with regulatory and liability partners. 

Schedule a demo with Overstory to learn more about actionable vegetation intelligence.