Power Line & Utility Inspections

For investor-owned utilities, cooperatives, and transmission operators, the question on every audit isn’t did you inspect the line: it’s can you prove it, and can you prove the vegetation was clear of the conductor on the date you flew? Skyflex builds the inspection record that makes that answer defensible.

Defensible FAC-003 documentation, captured in a single overflight

NERC’s transmission vegetation-management standard (FAC-003) requires that covered lines be inspected at least once per calendar year, with no more than 18 months between inspections. The compliance evidence is yours to produce; we make that evidence richer than a checklist. One Skyflex corridor pass captures structural condition, conductor and hardware health, thermal anomalies, and a classified LiDAR point cloud showing vegetation, conductors, and ground separately: all timestamped and georeferenced to the structure.

What we deliver after every utility mission

• Per-structure inspection package: high-resolution stills of conductors, insulators, hardware, and structures with defect coding ready for ingest into your asset-management system.
• Thermal anomaly report: radiometric pass over the line, flagging hot connections and degraded hardware with temperature deltas.
• Classified corridor point cloud: LiDAR data segmented into ground, vegetation, conductor, and structure layers in standard LAS/LAZ format.
• MVCD encroachment report: Minimum Vegetation Clearance Distance check against your rated electrical operating condition assumptions, with offending vegetation flagged for crew dispatch.
• KMZ overlays of findings for desktop review and field navigation.

Built around how utilities actually buy

Most utility corridor work runs energized: no outage required. We coordinate safe approach distances with your transmission planning team, fly under FAA Part 107, and deliver data in the schema your asset-management software expects. If you already publish to a portal (Power Line Systems, Bentley OpenUtilities, an in-house GIS), we hand off the dataset cleanly. If you don’t, we’ll spin up a hosted viewer.

How utility programs are priced

• Per-mile for corridor LiDAR + photo passes
• Per-structure for detailed close-proximity inspection passes
• Bundled annual programs that combine the above with a fixed reporting line item

Programs are typically scoped to fit the calendar-year inspection cadence the standard requires: one pass per year minimum, with optional mid-year flights for high-risk corridors or after-storm patrols.

Who we work with

Investor-owned utilities, electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, transmission operators, and the vegetation-management contractors who serve them. Every program is scoped against the specific lines you’re responsible for and the FAC-003 documentation your compliance team wants to file.