What Is Vegetation Management And Why It Is So Crucial?
Vegetation management signifies different meanings according to the context and industry pick. In technical terms, it’s a well-structured procedure that supervises utility companies for controlling excessive vegetation growth.
We often see a sudden rise in the wildfire and outages with the weather changes and that exposes the incapability of utilities towards establishing output-oriented plans.
The problem is not merely about the wind storms, power distribution also gets affected severely by the dry vegetation almost touching the equipment, leading to disastrous fire & blasts.
That's the reason why public welfare institutions, media, common activists, and consumers put so much effort into highlighting the vegetation issue in addition to pointing out the negligence of power utility industries. After all, everyone wants to enjoy 24*7 energy availability to remove hindrances in their work.
And, in the past few years, the entire technique of vegetarian maintenance has been reinforced through artificial intelligence and data analytics, minimizing the need for human resources since digitization resembles the thinking ability of a clever brain. Hence, controlling vegetation is apparently a different concept at present times.
Vegetation Maintenance Through Data Analytics
Vegetation overgrowth across the power plants, substation, and substation machines is no idle worry. This concern is as important as saving the earth from global warming.
Although the human brain has evolved a lot so far, we all need the support of artificial intelligence and innovation to cope up with the coherent changes in this integral world. In short, utilities must implement data analytics technologies to control vegetation with due care.
Come, let’s catch a glimpse of benefits coming from data analytics:-
Optimized Energy Distribution Networks
AI and data analytics get wide benefits that average utilities can’t even fantasize about, definitely more than detecting risks caused due to improper vegetation maintenance. You may find this hard to believe, but engineers are now successfully forecasting the maximized energy demand before it bombards the power distribution system all of a sudden.
Analytics Simplifies Vegetation Management
Vegetation, when comes into contact with power lines, leads to explosions. Utilities are making all possible efforts to keep assets in great condition. They are now examining the fire risk through predictive data analytics that reveals every essential particular, including facts archives about adequate vegetation heights, befit distance between the trees and equipment, dry vegetation detection, etc.
Precise Data Discovers Multiple Optimization Methods
Data analytics facilitates better asset optimization strategies that contribute to enhancing overall power production and distribution capacities by analyzing the condition of equipment in real-time. If some faults are identified, engineers get to fix them beforehand.
As a result, utilities experience fewer assets failure rates and significant improvement in outcomes.
Major Reasons Why Vegetation Maintenance Fails
Manual Audits
Technology & innovation is no doubt the priority of every enterprise these days, a significant number of utility industries haven’t adopted automation. Manual processes of analyzing trees, performing trimming, checking length or density, etc are quite time-consuming options and they provide poor results in some cases.
Lack of Flexibility In Cycle
Similar to audits, utilities also show carelessness in planning and implementing vegetation trimming sessions. Finalizing these vegetation control cycles is the sole responsibility of utility heads, especially senior engineers. Therefore, other members are not authorized to interfere. Various fact sheets reveal that most enterprises are working with the outmoded trimming cycle, which typically schedules vegetation management between 5-8 years.
Budget Restrictions
Regardless of the industry niche, every business keeps a budget by their side, which they can not exceed expert in some acute emergencies. Coming to the point, vegetation management is the most expensive operation. Being on the honest side, spending huge amounts on vegetation control is not a trouble, for large utilities. So, emerging companies have begun finding affordable methods via digitization that don't require a heavy workforce or lengthy procedures.
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Finishing Off
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Moving to the completion, we must have to agree that efficient vegetation management is possible only when utilities hop on the bandwagon of data analytics, AI, and digitization. Proper vegetation maintenance eventually results in optimized workforces, which in turn provides higher productivity and fewer outages.
We must also take time to look back at the companies that could not survive because of constant breakdowns and distribution system damages. Taking lessons from others' failures is something really very inspiring.
Don’t stop here! Go ahead and read about our Vegetation Management Analytics, inspiring case studies, and mobile app solutions that have been aiding several utilities. Maybe yours the next. What's More? Share your opinion/queries in the comments so that we can provide answers as quickly as possible.