Electricity, Safety, Quality, and Continuity

All these factors impact a network’s responsibilities to the regulator. Draper of UK Power Networks explains that the company reports to Ofgem on the number of inspections and amount of tree cutting it carries out. “[We show] how much of our network we have made resilient. The requirement to do so comes from other regulations such as the Electricity, Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations (ESQCR) The method used for surveying is up to us, and we also need to ensure best value for money.”

The complexity of the LV network means “it can be challenging to keep up with the sheer volume of what is happening at the LV level”, adds Phillipa Slater, the newly appointed director of asset management at NGED (she also spent almost two decades with RWE).

Surveying of LV networks by vehicles carrying 100-megapixel camera technology has both health and safety and productivity advantages, says Bateman. “Low voltage assets are often located at the side of roads or on country lanes, and there is a health and safety issue if you have someone standing at the side of the road doing a visual assessment of a pole,” he explains.

There is also an advantage when it comes to efficiency. “We can cover large areas very quickly. We have more than 70 capture vehicles covering 50km a day. Manual inspections don’t get close to that. We can cover an entire area in a six-month period that would otherwise take three years.”

He adds that from an ESQCR perspective, every pole and conductor needs to be checked. “We do that quickly. Manual checks can be quite subjective, but we provide the evidence base to take exactly the right measurements of conductor clearance.” The visual record generated by Cyclomedia is also auditable, so there is a log of when assets were checked, and by whom.

“As well as health and safety risk reduction and speed, the data can be used for other purposes. We are helping networks understand what they have out there, and how it is monitored and maintained. Asset managers are sometimes surprised by what is actually there compared to their records.”