The Utility Imagery & Inspection Consortium (UIIC) held its third annual Summer Symposium at Dominion Energy facilities in Richmond, VA this month. Over a hundred thought leaders attended the 2-day Symposium, where they attended workshops from the ongoing UIIC Centers of Excellence (CoEs) that allowed participants to meet face-to-face to continue driving value and tackling challenges. Utility leaders in the imagery space came together to view presentations from utility peers and solution providers, including an onsite drone demonstration at Dominion Energy's Training Center in Chester, VA.   

Gus Johnson, Vice President of Grid & Technical Solutions at Dominion Energy, reviewed the landscape of the current imagery & inspection program at Dominion and outlined the company's vision for the future. The Symposium also featured presentations and workshops led by utility thought leaders from utilities such as Avista, Dominion Energy, Eversource, Exelon, FirstEnergy, and FPL that spoke about how technologies and practices create value in their business.  

Notable workshops offered software deep dives that explored what can be done with imagery within different business units once the photos and videos have been captured and how Artificial Intelligence is now incorporated into this process. Additional sessions featured utilities addressing the types of imagery being collected, how imagery data is used to assist with damage assessment/storm response, and how geography can affect the different use cases a utility needs to focus on. 

Attendees were highly engaged and interactive during these sessions, undoubtedly spurring conversations that will continue post-conference. Symposium Session Speaker Vladyslav Anderson, Principal Quantitative Engineer, Exelon, stated, "Attending the UIIC Symposium in Richmond was a great way to share what Exelon is doing in this space and get up to speed with the latest developments in remote sensing technology and artificial intelligence. The conversations with the vendor partners and our industry were great."  

Ken Maness, Vice President of Industry Research at TMG and UIIC Executive Director, commented, “The growth of UIIC in the last three years has been extremely encouraging. For example, this year's drone demonstration looked a lot different with all the new capabilities and products that are now available. These UIIC events provide an experience for these like-minded individuals to gather and help drive this niche space forward. Our goal is to encourage and provide ongoing collaboration that helps streamline a process that was once extremely manual while sharing successes and challenges within the community along the way. We are ecstatic to have the partnerships and support from organizations like AEIC, DistribuTECH, and EPRI."  

Click here to pre-register for our next event, the 2025 UIIC Summit, which will be held in conjunction with DistribuTECH on March 24-27, 2025, in Dallas, TX.