An inside look at how Georgia Power keeps the lights on

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) — Georgia Power is giving an inside look at how it keeps electricity flowing across the state.

The company uses drones to inspect transmission lines and identify potential problems before they lead to service disruptions for customers.

At the McGraw Ford Substation in Cherokee County, transmission line specialist Nicholas Howell flew a drone over the site, looking for wear and tear, rust, broken lines, overgrown vegetation and loose hardware.

“The main reason for the inspections is to find issues before they’re a problem and get them corrected,” Howell said. “If we find a critical... what we’ll do is stop our inspection at that point, pull the memory card out of the drone. Then we send it immediately in the field to the responsible crews and foremen so they can come out and get the work done as quickly as possible.”

He said the McGraw Ford Substation passed his inspection, with no issues noted in the drone survey.

Howell, a former lineman, said drones help inspectors identify more potential issues than older methods.

“We find so much more too than we did doing older techniques,” he said.

Georgia Power spokesperson Tiffany Anthony said the company is investing in grid modernization to meet the state’s growing energy needs.

“We are adding 1,000 miles of line throughout the state. We are upgrading substations, making sure everything is good,” Anthony said. “We want to make our power very reliable for our customers.”

Anthony said those investments can also help crews restore power faster during major events. During Hurricane Isaias, Georgia Power had nearly 80,000 outages at one point and restored 95% of service within 24 hours, she said.

Hurricane Isaias made landfall last weekend near Destin, Florida, as a Category 2 storm. Power outages spread across the Florida Panhandle and into Alabama, Georgia and neighboring states.

During and after the storm, Georgia Power said it used “smart grid” technology that enabled remote restoration and switching in many locations, even while the storm was underway.

This is a developing story. Check back with Atlanta News First as we learn more.