SwissDrones Featured in Industry today: Disaster Prevention Starts With Energy Infrastructure
Energy company leaders are bracing for a major, preventable disaster within the next decade without the adoption of automated solutions.
This past Easter holiday turned into a weekend of darkness for Puerto Rico when a transmission failure caused a blackout, cutting electricity for 1.4 million customers and leaving 400,000 without water. What was meant to be a time of celebration became a reminder of the fragility of the energy grid. And Puerto Rico isn’t the only case, many states across the U.S. remain highly vulnerable to outages, and the Department of Energy warns that blackouts could increase 100 times by 2030.
According to a SwissDrones study conducted with Censuswide, 89% of energy executives in North America believe deteriorating infrastructure will lead to a major, preventable pipeline or powerline incident within the next decade. Leaders also expect dramatic increases in service interruptions and higher consumer prices in the coming years, all preventable with the right action.
Yet 87% of executives agree the energy industry is still more reactive than proactive when preparing for disasters. This reactive mindset is costly: more than half of companies report outages now exceeding $100,000, while one in five say they surpass $1 million. Dealing with the fallout of a catastrophe costs far more than early investment in protecting critical infrastructure.
As extreme weather worsens, the crisis deepens. Wildfires, hurricanes, and storms continue to damage systems not built to withstand modern environmental challenges. 96% of executives say they are not confident their infrastructure can hold up against large storms and every season brings new threats.
Traditional inspection methods using manned helicopters can no longer keep up. The future of inspections lies in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). 62% of leaders support adopting automated inspections and AI-powered data analysis, while 96% believe UAVs will largely replace helicopters for infrastructure inspections within the next decade. UAVs offer safer, more efficient, and more environmentally friendly operations and play a critical role in strengthening system resilience.
While 88% of executives cite regulation as the biggest obstacle, change is underway. The FAA’s proposed Part 108 framework for Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations is paving the way for scaled UAV adoption and a new era of proactive disaster prevention.
Our systems have waited long enough, infrastructure needs urgent attention today to avoid the failures of tomorrow.
To read more about how UAVs can help prevent large-scale energy disasters, read the full article: Disaster Prevention Starts With Energy Infrastructure
%20(1).jpg)
