The director of Distribution of Endesa in the Canary Islands, Javier Sánchez Paz, presented this Tuesday in Lanzarote the first drone that the company will use to review the island's electricity grid. It is an unmanned aerial device, which is incorporated to facilitate the inspection of electrical lines, especially in those points of difficult access.
For its incorporation into the predictive tasks of reviewing the distribution network, Endesa has had to train technicians as pilots, so that they could obtain a license to fly. The handling of the drone also requires a camera operator. "The use of drones improves the inspection of the electricity grid, as well as the continuity of supply, since, by avoiding the work of technicians on the network, it does not have to be cut to proceed with the review," they point out from the company. In addition, it offers greater security to the workers who carry out the inspections.
In total, Endesa already has 14 drones in Spain, which are used in the territories where the company has power lines: Catalonia, Andalusia, Aragon, the Balearic Islands and the Canary Islands. In addition, the company plans to participate in development projects of this technology that allow light work to be carried out by equipping drones with robotic arms.
These devices are capable of taking off and landing on their own by means of electric propulsion and can maintain position and altitude automatically thanks to a GPS and a barometric control. In addition, as an additional safety measure, they incorporate a system that, in the event of signal loss, returns the device to the starting point. They are equipped with high-resolution cameras, to guarantee good visibility, equipped with gyroscopic stabilizers that allow capturing images of the electrical line with great quality and sharpness. Its weight is around four kilos and they have a dimension of about 75 centimeters in diameter, including the blades.
