Vegetation Monitoring
Track all vegetation risks on every meter of critical infrastructure, at scale
Adapt trimming cycles based on growth rates and fuel loads
Move from a sub-optimal calendar-based to a risk-based VM approach
Today, vegetation management
is broken
Vegetation management is more than just trimming trees and bushes. It is about keeping critical infrastructure secure from encroachments and wildfire risk to ensure safe, cost-efficient operations and uninterrupted service to customers.
Dangerous vegetation encroachment can damage electrical equipment, cause power outages and even trigger massive wildfires. Roots of vegetation may cause leakages to gas and water pipelines. For railways and road operators, it can mean safety risks for users and workers and delays in service.
Traditional and often outdated methods to monitor vegetation don’t allow inspection of thousands of kilometres of assets, especially in hard-to-access areas and under extreme weather conditions. They also can be time-consuming and require many resources, training or special permits.
What is more, traditionally vegetation management is performed based on fixed trim cycles, which take place between 4 and 8 years. This is not an optimized and justified approach since it doesn’t rely on up-to-date and accurate data about trees hazards.
Today, asset managers are requested to re-think and optimize vegetation management spending while enhancing the relevant service reliability indicators.
Reduce asset faults, maximise ROI
Using satellite imagery backed by advanced AI technology, Spottitt MF ® for Vegetation Monitoring allows
digital monitoring of thousands of kilometres of the grid in only a couple of days.
Included Variables
Identify hazardous vegetation timely and accurately and prevent infrastructure failure.
- Coniferous trees
- Broadleaf trees
- Cropland
- Heat & scrub
- Grassland
- Vegetation health
- Vegetation height
- Soil moisture
- Wind speed
- Wind direction
- Temperature
- Humidity
Download our brochure to learn more about Spottitt MFⓇ for Vegetation Monitoring.
Client Case Studies
"With Spottitt MF, we were able to remove all the guesswork and rely on up-to-date, accurate data at scale to better plan all our vegetation management activities."
The Client:
UK electricity DSO with 3.500 km of aerial MV and LV lines.
Business challenge:
- 1 helicopter Lidar analysis of the full network every 6 years, at a cost of €360,000
- Average annual vegetation management costs are about €190.000
- Vegetation management activities are calendar-based and sub-optimal
The company wanted to understand actual vegetation growth rates, but it will require more frequent monitoring and, consequently, higher cost if using traditional monitoring methods.
Solution delivered:
Spottitt Vegetation Monitoring allowed the company to optimize vegetation management activities, tasking pruning and cutting only when and where encroachment issues were identified.
Why Spottitt was chosen:
Spottitt MF does not replace the current vegetation management system. It only provides an additional layer of data which improves the planning and validation processes, with the necessary flexibility to accommodate the specific risk model of the company.
Business outcome:
- Vegetation management costs were reduced by 30%
- 3X more frequent inspections for greater overall risk awareness
- No flight permits are needed to run the inspections
The Client:
Swiss electricity DSO managing 2200 km of electricity lines. A third-party contractor takes care of all tree-cutting activities.
Business challenge:
At the beginning of the growing season, the DSO needs to send a team to calculate the number of trees to be cut in the RoW. At the end of the growing season, the DSO needs to send the team back to check that the contractor did their job accurately.
It takes about 25 work-days for two employees to walk the lines each time. The company would need to hire 3 more people to do the inspections in a sufficiently short time frame.
Solution delivered:
Spottitt Vegetation Monitoring allowed the DSO to have the same vegetation data automatically, from satellites, without the need for any foot inspections.
Why Spottitt was chosen:
Spottitt can analyse vegetation over thousands of km of energy networks in less than 2 days. Spottitt MF can be used even if the company doesn’t have an existing GIS system.
Business outcome:
- The vegetation was checked in 1/9 the time
- Found 19.560 cubic meters of biomass not cut by the contractor
- 3 man-months were reinvested in higher-value activities
Powered by Spottitt MF
Spottitt MF allows asset managers to get accurate geospatial analytics to track all possible risks on every meter of their assets, at scale, without breaking the budget
100% digital
Satellite-based analyses to avoid any hardware installation or flight permits
10.000 km in 48 hours
We automated the full process of getting satellite data and transforming them into actionable insights
Fueling your risk model
View, filter and integrate our metrics the way you need, without replacing your current management systems
Relevant blog articles
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