Xianning, Hubei: Technology Empowers Substation Maintenance as Drones Speed Up Inspections

On the morning of June 19, at the State Grid Hubei Electric Power Xianning Power Supply Company's central control station, located at No. 19 Yongan East Road, Xianning, a silver-white MATRICE 3TD drone took off from the metal hangar at the 110 kV Qianshan Substation, marking the official start of technology-powered grid maintenance.

On-site Drone Inspection 

Photo by Zhang Menghan

"Traditionally, special inspection tasks required a team of two people and one vehicle to visit each substation sequentially. Inspecting 12 substations would take at least 6 person-days. Now, with intelligent inspection methods, we can assign inspection tasks for all substations under our jurisdiction with just one click, and an inspection report is automatically generated within 2 hours. This greatly improves the efficiency of special inspections while reducing the workload of operations and maintenance (O&M) personnel," explained Xiao Yeqing, Deputy Head of the Tangjiao O&M team, while pointing to the inspection results on the monitoring screen.

Since the beginning of this year, the company has been actively advancing the independent implementation of new digital services, such as "real-scene + point cloud" modeling for substations and three-dimensional inspection route planning. Currently, the company has completed the intelligent inspection upgrade of all 65 substations at 110 kV and above under its jurisdiction, integrating 65 drones and over 600 optical cameras. Over 900 drone flight paths have been established, covering more than 70,000 inspection points, achieving full coverage with "drones + high-definition cameras."

With the deep integration of panoramic monitoring and intelligent analysis platform for substation equipment status, the company aims to realize a future smart operation and maintenance model, featuring "automatic identification of equipment status, intelligent defect diagnosis, and autonomous adaptation of inspection strategies."

Substation Equipment Operations and Maintenance Site 

Photo by Zheng Yu