Vegetation threats to energy infrastructure are numerous, substantial, and eat up significant portions of a utility’s maintenance budget. Trees, brush, and grasses all require either chemical or mechanical intervention when they encroach on electrical corridors. The decision on when and where to act should be made with the right information.

Traditionally, information has been obtained by manually spot-checking a sampling of trees and vegetation at a few points in a circuit or along a transmission corridor, then extrapolating to infer what work needs to be completed on the larger system and when. Satelytics’ geospatial analytics transforms your planning program from spot checks to a holistic survey of the entire system.

Satelytics vegetation algorithms are effective for two reasons:

• High-resolution imagery. Satelytics analyzes satellite imagery with the highest spatial resolution commercially available – usually 50-cm imagery from Airbus, but when required, we also have access to 30-cm imagery. For perspective, this is the size of a dinner plate – incredible resolution! This data allows our vegetation algorithms to identify small trees, brush, and encroaching limbs and measure tree height within 5% of actual.

• Quantitative results. Our expansive library of data assists in speciating many types of trees and vegetation from the onset of any project. If a particular species is new to us, we train the algorithms on new data we obtain to understand vegetation in the customer’s operating area. In either case, Satelytics’ spectral algorithms have been trained to look for symptoms of chlorosis and alert asset managers to threats from compromised trees.

Vegetation tells a story. Satelytics reads that story aloud so you can plan management actions cost-effectively. Call us to learn more and explore details.