On September 12, Xcel Energy became the first company ever to fly a US utility drone Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) during ongoing inspections. The drone was launched to inspect power lines in Platteville, Colorado near the Fort St.Vrain Generating Station.  The company launched the 35-pound drone which was equipped with two high quality cameras as federal, state, and local officials looked on. The drone’s job was to collect data on the status of the power lines as well as the transmission towers in Denver. During the inspection, the drone covered a distance of over 50 miles away from its pilot.

According to Xcel Energy’s chairman, CEO, and president, Ben Fowke, their latest test brought the company a few steps closer to achieving their mission to fully integrate unmanned aerial vehicles into their operations. The innovative technology will revolutionize the whole industry by improving the safety, effectiveness, and efficiency of protecting and carrying out maintenance operations on the grid.

According to a report by POWER in May, drones are emerging as a powerful force in business operations. However, for the full potential of drones to be used, there has to be some changes in the regulations to allow BVLOS flights.  For a long time, the drone industry has pushed for BVLOS drone flights mainly as a result of their ability to cover longer distances which significantly improves the feasibility and economics of many commercial drone operations.

A report by the done company PrecisionHawk, pointed out that companies that fly BVLOS receive a lot of safety and efficiency benefits since the drones can collect a lot more data in fewer deployments by allowing the operators to fly the drone remotely. Companies can collect more data from places that were previously unreachable. The safety of the workers is also greatly improved since they no longer have to climb up tall power lines during inspections.

However, getting a BVLOS Part 1O7 waiver from the FAA has not been an easy task.  So far, Xcel is the only company that has been allowed to launch BVLOS flights.  When transmission inspections are complete, Xcel is planning to work with the FAA in order to extend the operations to other states where they provide service.