Drones for power sector: Made in Finland for India

Finland's Unmanned Aerial Vehicle solutions provider Sharper Shape will provide aerial solutions for power transmission sector in partnership with Sterlite Grid Ventures

Finland's unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) solutions provider, Sharper Shape, will provide aerial solutions for the power transmission sector in partnership with Sterlite Grid Ventures. Sterlite Grid is India’s largest private developer of independent transmission systems.

Sterlite Grid said the alliance would provide business solutions to transmission line operators and help them reduce delivery time of projects, and increase the uptime of power systems. The agreement was signed between the companies in the presence of the Prime Minister of Finland, Juha Sipilä, in Mumbai. Sipilä attended the 'Make in India' conference in the city.

“I’m happy to see Finnish technology being applied in the Indian market,” said Sipilä. “This agreement is a good example of the business activity between Finland and India.”

Sterlite Grid’s role in this alliance would involve setting up operations in India, including all customer-facing activities. Sharper Shape would offer software solutions, technical know-how and the capabilities required to fulfil the scope of the work.

“India has a tremendous requirement to improve the construction-speed, and operating-efficiency of transmission systems. This partnership will play a critical role towards meeting that need,” said Pratik Agarwal of Sterlite Grid.

Business Standard had reported recently that power transmission companies including state-owned Power Grid had sought permission for using drones in monitoring project construction. Power transmission companies, which usually have to build infrastructure in inaccessible areas, have applied to reduce their maintenance cost.

According to experts, with rising thrust on delivering transmission projects in time, developers are increasingly deploying aerial technologies to save time. Drone is an unmanned aerial vehicle with photo capturing and video recording facility, mostly used by defence across the world for both monitoring and combat purposes. It is also used in movie shoots and video recording, and has caught the fancy of other sectors when a restaurant recently used it for pizza delivery.

An e-commerce giant has reportedly requested the Indian government for permission to use them to deliver products. Drones are now even used in grand Indian weddings to aerially record the function, by private meteorological agencies, forest and agricultural research bodies.

According to Sterlite, UAVs can play a critical role in preventing breakdowns by offering predictive analytics.