Utility Vegetation Management Application DESIGNING A MOBILE GEOSPATIAL APPLICATION TO STREAMLINE FIELD COLLECTION & RECORDKEEPING Joshua DeWees

Agenda I.Goals II.Definition III.Vegetation Impacts IV.Distribution Utility V.Spoon River Electric: Case Study VI.Prototype Design Strategy VII.Information Products VIII.Timeline

Project Goals  Create a prototype mobile application to streamline the Utility Vegetation Management field survey process by improving:  Consistency in quantifying vegetation  Record keeping and customer related notes  Documentation of performed work

Utility Vegetation Management (VM)  One of the most expensive maintenance activities in the electric utility business  Necessary for safety and reliability  Requires a dedicated program with a good planning strategy  Requires detailed records to track spatial characteristics over time (species, volume and location)

Vegetation Impacts on Distribution Lines  Direct contact  Overhanging Branches  Underbrush that prevents access

Direct Contact

Overhanging Branches

Underbrush

Distribution Electric Systems  Vegetation can cause faults that are transient or constant  High current faults can trigger system protection devices ( fuses, reclosers, etc)  Faults result in outages, blinking lights, voltage anomalies, and line loss  Faults also cause customer dissatisfaction, economic disturbance, and regulatory issues  Proper vegetation management minimizes faults from trees and animals and reduces customer and regulatory issues

Spoon River Electric Cooperative  Operates Vegetation Management program for three rural electric cooperatives in central Illinois  15 Vegetation Management employees split into two operation units  Use Esri GIS and handheld GPS to track and document the vegetation management program. This process involves several manual steps to get from the field to the database  Model uses linear referencing and route event table to describe the work

Spoon River Electric: Current Processes Planning process  Collect GPS points of locations where vegetation management is needed  Make handwritten notes about equipment, access, steepness, percent canopy, and special notes  Transcribe all handwritten notes into the GIS database  Print maps for the crews  Record keeping process  Collect GPS record of location  Indicate point number and work performed on written worksheet  Transcribe the work notes into the GIS database to mark the work that is completed  Calculate work footage for the board of directors report

Field Sheet

Database Structure ((Access+Truck+Chipper+Mower+Manual+Herbicide+Steepness )x Spans) x Canopy

Field Map

Prototype Design

 Design a survey for the cooperative managers in the Illinois electric cooperatives  Establish the current methods used at cooperatives in Illinois to budget, plan and complete vegetation management activities  Identify technology tools that are used for planning and documenting these activities  Identify the primary person responsible for managing these activities at each cooperative  Evaluate Commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) solutions  Consider options for the server implementation  Cloud  In-house behind a firewall

Prototype Design  Create a paper prototype to identify a user friendly form for data entry  Evaluate this with current Spoon River employees

Prototype Design  Electronic prototype requirements:  Mobile by tablet or smart phone  Capable of disconnected editing  Capable of synchronizing with the distributed database when reconnected  Easy to use for employees in the field

Primary Information Products  Maps for communicating the work type and location to the field crews  Records showing daily progress and long term maintenance history  Estimates for work-units describing each substation or circuit

Product 1  This product should answer a job foreman’s question:  Where are the trees and what equipment will I need to clear them?

Product 2  This product should answer a line clearance manager’s questions:  Is the work completed?  When was it completed?  Were there any problems or concerns from the members that need to be documented?

Product 3  This product should answer a CEO or board of directors’ questions:  How long should this take?  How much will it cost?  How did we perform against our budget for this work?

Capstone Timeline  The timeline for this prototype/design phase is approximately six months.  Month seven will be dedicated to the conclusion of the design approach and preparing to share my results at Esri UC in San Diego.  I hope to have a working prototype to show for the conference.

Thank You! Questions?

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References: 1. “Utility Vegetation Management Final Report”; CN Utility Consulting, LLC; March “Beyond Status Quo”; Rick Johnstone; Vistas (a trade publication); accessed 11/09/ “The Economic Impacts of Deferring Electric Utility Tree Maintenance”; D. Mark Browning; Environmental Consultants, Inc.; April “Integrated Vegetation Management on an Electric Transmission Right-of-way in Pennsylvania, U. S.”; Richard H. Yahner and Russell J. Hutnick; Journal of Arboriculture; September “UAA Best Management Practices Funding”, Lynn Grayson ; accessed 11/09/ “Reliability Based Vegetation Management Through Intelligent System Monitoring”; B. Don Russell, Carl L. Benner, and Jeffrey Wischkaemper; Project T-27 Tele-seminar, 10/16/2007, accessed 11/09/2014