Over the next few weeks, PG&E will be flying helicopters overhead to conduct what its calling “routine safety inspections” along the company’s gas transmission pipelines in the Central Coast and the South Bay regions.
That will include, portions of Monterey, Santa Cruz and Santa Clara Counties.
“These helicopters are equipped with advanced LiDAR technology that can detect natural gas leaks and collect data that helps PG&E monitor its infrastructure to ensure the safety and reliability of its systems,” a company official said in an email to media partners on April 9.
“It’s important for customers in the area to know that PG&E is only using helicopters to survey infrastructure and assets that belong to PG&E.”
Back in December, PG&E announced it would be conducting weeks-worth of drone flyovers to collect imagery of its equipment to help spot and fix potential issues ahead of the winter storm season.
“Our drone team will be focusing on poles and power lines in hard-to-reach areas,” it said at the time. “The photos captured during these flights are analyzed by PG&E’s inspection team to identify maintenance needs or any encroaching vegetation before it results in an outage. Once an issue is detected, our inspectors issue a work tag, so our local electric or vegetation team can go out and address the problem.”
System inspections will take about 10-45 minutes per location, a company rep stated.
“It’s important to note that our drones only capture photos of our equipment, not of your home or property, and the work will not impact customers’ power,” the spokesperson said. “All of the flights happen during daylight hours.”
