Maintenance and repairs represent a significant cost for electrical utilities. A typical utility allocates around 15 percent of its total operations & maintenance (O&M) budget to planned or scheduled maintenance. While generally simple to manage, this approach can be highly inefficient. Minor issues can go unnoticed in between inspections leading to more serious failures, while crews can spend more time travelling between sites and inspecting equipment than actually conducting repairs.

Severe weather and environmental damage pose some of the most significant threats to North America’s electrical infrastructure. Major storms, heatwaves, wildfires, floods, and blizzards can all damage equipment, bring down transmission lines, and cause widespread and prolonged power outages.

The way we generate, transmit, and use electricity is changing. Driven by government policies, technological advances, and falling prices, sustainable energy sources are increasingly being used to lower emissions without compromising on reliability or affordability.

Around the world, both governments and utilities are striving to reduce the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the electricity sector through renewable and sustainable generation technologies. While these efforts have resulted in significant progress, there is still a substantial amount of work left to be done to fully decarbonize the grid while delivering affordable and reliable power to customers.

The North American electric grid is a remarkable achievement. Spreading across the entire continent, the complex mix of generation, transmission, and distribution infrastructure continues to deliver reliable power to customers in even the most remote locations.

A midsized utility operates numerous remote electrical substations distributed across a wide geographic region. Physical inspections are conducted on a periodic, scheduled basis using handheld thermal scanners and other equipment to determine the health of substation assets, diagnose issues, and prioritize repairs.

Electrical utilities play a vital role in delivering safe and reliable power to consumers, businesses, and governments. In the U.S. alone, more than $400 billion of electricity flows through more than 7 million miles of high voltage transmission and distribution lines that criss-cross the country. More than 55,000 substations convert that voltage to distribution levels so that it can be safely used.

Despite significant investments in safety, utility substations remain a hazardous environment. With high voltages and the potential for catastrophic failure, utilities must mitigate the risk of injury or death when operating in or around a substation.

Electrical utilities across North America are making significant investments in transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure. Growing demand for electrical power, stronger regulation, and the proliferation of renewable energy sources are placing added strain on aging infrastructure. In response, the industry is moving to enhance reliability, increase capacity, and reduce the cost of maintenance and repairs.

The Asset Management team at a regional electrical utility is responsible for maintaining the health, performance, and reliability of critical transmission and distribution infrastructure. Along with the Operations & Maintenance team, they require data from various sensors, data sources, technologies, and sites. Without a unified dashboard, users must constantly switch between numerous applications and databases.