![]() ![]() Do not fly near airports, manned aircraft, stadiums, or people.Do not fly the drone beyond your line of sight.Have a damaged drone repaired before use. Before flying the drone, check it for damage.Also, keep these FAA safety guidelines in mind: If you come across downed power lines, call 911 to notify emergency personnel and the utility immediately.įollow federal guidelines for registering your drone or getting business approval, and be aware of and abide by community and state-specific legislation. ![]() Stay away and instruct others to do the same. Touching a downed line or anything it has fallen on, like a fence or a tree limb, could get you injured or even killed. The falling debris could also endanger public safety. It could also result in downed lines, which pose a dangerous electrical safety hazard. If a drone flies into a power line, it could cause power outages. Keep drones away from overhead power lines. As a result, there is an increasing need to ensure these craft are flown safely and within regulations. For more information visitĬomEd.Drones are unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that are increasingly being used recreationally and professionally. ComEd powers the lives of more than 4 million customers across northern Illinois, or 70 percent of the state’s population. Among its benefits, the program drives maximum efficiency of this work, cutting the cost and time by more than half, while also reducing safety risks for workers and air emissions from fuel-burning equipment.ĬomEd is a unit of Chicago-based Exelon Corporation (NASDAQ: EXC), a Fortune 200 energy company with approximately 10 million electricity and natural gas customers – the largest number of customers in the U.S. ![]() Since the summer of 2019, ComEd has utilized a team of goats to help clear vegetation in difficult to access places. This is one of the many innovative approaches ComEd's Vegetation Management team have implemented to avoid outages and service disruptions due to overgrown vegetation near powerlines. The devices are equipped with a 2.5-gallon tank for the herbicide solution and utilize propellers to deploy the fine mist over the targeted field, providing more consistent, controlled coverage than spraying from ground level. The drones, operated by the Davey Resource Group, are specially designed to deploy ComEd's Environmental Protection Agency approved herbicide mixture over the area, identified via GPS coordinates. Should the vegetation have grown onto the nearby power lines, it could have caused outages or service disruptions in the area. Most of the vegetation in the area ranged from 8-10 feet in height. The test site, located in an industrial area in Forest View, was the perfect location to deploy this vegetation management approach because the area was full of tall, dense vegetation including buckthorn, box elder and mulberry plants. The two-acre site in Forest View is now in the process of being converted to natural prairie. As of 2022, ComEd has successfully restored nearly 4,000 acres of ROW land into natural prairie and pollinator habitats. To cultivate natural prairie, any existing, non-native vegetation and its affiliated seed beds must be fully removed to prime the location for new, native seed growth. This pilot program will help ComEd address invasive and unwanted vegetation located along its transmission powerlines and quicken the process of bringing more natural prairie to approximately 65,000 acres of ComEd right-of-way (ROW) land. "As a result of our team's innovative thinking, ComEd is the first Midwest utility to utilize drones in our vegetation management program to more efficiently and more safely mitigate the threat of power outages due to plant growth or overgrowth around our power lines." "Through the hard work of our 6,200 employees and continued, prudent investment in the grid, we're delivering record-breaking reliability to the families and businesses we serve," said Michelle Blaise, Senior Vice President of Technical Services at ComEd. Recent inspection of the area has indicated that the drone herbicide deployment was successful, enabling ComEd to further refine and deploy this program in other areas to more safely and efficiently remove or maintain vegetation overgrowth that, absent proper management, could cause power outages. The drone deployment process took 45 minutes and 0.75 gallons of herbicide to complete what would have taken a human crew approximately two days of work and 8 gallons of herbicide solution. The first deployment of drone-delivered herbicide took place on two-acres of ComEd right-of-way land in Forest View, Ill. ![]() 27, 2022) - ComEd has begun piloting an innovative approach to vegetation management near powerlines with the help of specialized drones. Innovative use of technology enables safer, more efficient eradication of invasive species under northern Illinois powerlinesĬHICAGO (Sept. ![]()
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