SwissDrones Featured in Utility Dive: How FAA’s Part 108 Will Transform Energy Infrastructure Inspections
SwissDrones CEO, Ulrich Amberg, has been featured in Utility Dive , a leading energy industry publication, with a timely opinion piece on a game-changing development for infrastructure monitoring: the acceleration of Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) regulations for commercial drone operations.
In November 2018, a small hardware failure on a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. transmission line in Butte County, California, triggered a wildfire that claimed 85 lives, caused $16 billion in damage, and brought down a major energy company. Despite frequent and rigorous inspections, detecting early warning signs across thousands of miles of infrastructure remains a daunting challenge.
Today, most preventive inspections rely on manned helicopters equipped with cameras or LiDAR sensors or simply the human eye. While effective in many cases, these methods are costly, carbon-intensive, and limited in the precision and repeatability of their data collection.
Ulrich explains how large UAVs capable of carrying heavy sensor payloads and flying precisely identical flight patterns can transform inspections. This repeatability enables AI-driven analysis and digital twins that detect micro-changes invisible to the human eye, such as a few inches of terrain movement that could signal an imminent failure. UAVs also remove crew risk, dramatically reduce fuel burn, and offer significant cost advantages over manned helicopters.
The widespread adoption of these capabilities has long hinged on Part 108, the FAA’s long-awaited BVLOS regulation. Now, a new executive order
Unleashing American Drone Dominance fast-tracks its implementation, requiring a rule proposal within 30 days and finalization within 240 days. It also sets out clear performance metrics, removes key barriers, and leverages AI to expedite approvals.
This acceleration means utilities and infrastructure managers should begin planning now for UAV integration. As Ulrich writes, “The next generation of infrastructure inspections will be here before we know it, and it’ll be safer than ever before.”
Read the full article in Utility Dive here: https://www.utilitydive.com/news/faa-uav-drones-utility-inspection-bvlos/756610/
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