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Drones take centre stage in grid inspections and offshore monitoring
17/9/2025
News
National Grid and RWE have each unveiled first-of-their-kind drone deployments, highlighting the growing role of autonomous systems in energy infrastructure.
In the UK, National Grid has launched a centralised platform for beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS) inspections of high-voltage assets.
National Grid says it is the world’s first centralised, autonomous aerial inspection capability for electricity infrastructure.
The system, which uses sees.ai’s technology, enables drones to fly BVLOS close to live power infrastructure, piloted remotely from a central control room.
Drones will capture images and data of high-voltage towers (pylons) and conductors (cables), with data feeding into National Grid’s maintenance and investment planning across England and Wales.
Automated asset inspection using drones promises faster, more consistent data collection, reducing the risk and environmental impact of other methods of data capture.
Kathryn Fairhurst, Overhead Line Operations Director, National Grid, comments: ‘By handling non-intrusive inspection tasks, this technology enables our highly skilled line workers to focus more efficiently on the complex, hands-on work that requires human expertise, and will form an important part of how we continue to manage our assets and deliver a safe and reliable network.’
Meanwhile, RWE has deployed a long-range drone with a high-resolution camera system for environmental monitoring at its Kaskasi offshore wind farm in Germany – claimed to be a European first.
The long-range drone (Primoco UAV One 150), operated by BioConsult, can fly for up to 15 hours and carries an optimised HiDef video system for autonomous operation. It ensures continuity with historic datasets by matching the coverage and resolution of conventional aerial monitoring.
This method is said to offer a less intrusive and low-emission way to monitor birds and marine mammals, such as porpoises, removing the need for ship-based observers or aircraft. According to BioConsult, using the drone can reduce the carbon footprint of monitoring by up to 90%.
The drone is one of the technologies being deployed as part of RWE’s Sustainable Ecosystem Approach in Monitoring the Marine Environment (SeaMe) project. SeaMe is investigating less invasive monitoring techniques, including AI-enabled fish detection using underwater vehicles, turbine-mounted video to monitor birds and their behaviour, and environmental DNA analysis from water samples.
BioConsult’s long-range drone with high-resolution camera system
BioConsult SH
