New Delhi, Feb 20 (IANS): Delhi electricity distribution company (discom) BSES on Thursday announced that it has drawn up a detailed plan for using drones to monitor the health of the electricity network, including high voltage lines and grid sub-stations.

A BSES release said that the plan involves using high resolution imagery and infra-red thermo scanning to inspect overhead lines and equipment, grid substations, connections, damaged switches, capacitors, detection of theft of equipment and "intelligent line profiling".

"As a first step, BSES Yamuna Power Ltd (BYPL) and BSES Rajdhani Power Ltd (BRPL) have undertaken projects for visual and thermal mapping of the distribution infrastructure. For the same, the drones were fitted with high definition cameras for visual inspection and an infra-red camera for thermal imaging for identification of the hotspots," it said.

"BSES drone programme has already taken off and will be used for accurately mapping assets on the GIS with high accuracy power-theft detection, inspection of roof-top solar installations, accurate assessment of roof-top solar potential along with obstructions and assessment of vegetation encroachment around discom infrastructure," it added.

The statement said that in collaboration with drone operator Garuda UAV, BYPL has undertaken inspections over a 45-day period at the discom's Vivek Vihar grid and the EHV Circuit between the Vivek Vihar and Patparganj grids in east Delhi.

Similarly, BRPL has undertaken a pilot at the 66 kv Paschim Vihar grid station, along with the two towers of 66 kv Bodella 1 - Paschim Vihar Circuit 1 and 2 and 33 kv Mukherjee Park Circuit 3 near Chaukhandi.