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The Côte d'Ivoire
Electricity Company (CIE) is using drones to revolutionize the inspection of
its infrastructure
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"Drones have become my passion," says
Noursely Doumbia, who holds a degree in electronics and is currently learning
to pilot drones as part of a pioneering programme in Côte d'Ivoire's economic
capital Abidjan.
The training is being offered at a new
"drone academy" which has been set up by the Ivorian Electricity
Company (CIE) in order to revolutionize the inspection of its infrastructure
and ultimately to reduce costs.
Although common in Europe, the use of drones is
still in its infancy in West Africa although the commercial market for unmanned
aircraft is expanding.
The aim is for CIE — which
is majority-owned by France's Eranove Group, a key provider of water and
electricity in West Africa — to
train around 20 local pilots to inspect its high-voltage lines which
criss-cross the country, stretching more than 25,000 kilometres (15,500 miles).
"We have a lot of problems with vegetation,
we need to clear it all the time and it's difficult because it's all across the
whole country," explains Benjamin Mathon, a pilot who is in charge of
CIE's drone and youth training programme.
Dirt tracks that are impassable following heavy
rain, widespread areas of lush tropical vegetation and a patchy road network
often conspire to make access to electricity pylons difficult in a country
which covers 322,000 square kilometres (124,000 square miles) -- nearly
two-thirds the area of France.
After overflying an area with a drone equipped
with cameras and thermal and laser sensors, "we use artificial
intelligence programmes which analyse the images for any defects, a rusty bolt
on a pylon, a damaged cable," explains Mathon.
Slashing inspection times
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Students at CIE's academy
are taught how to assemble and maintain drones as well as learning to pilot the
unmanned aircraft
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"The drone allows us to analyze a large
number of lines in a short space of time, across great distances," he
says.
Not only do students learn how to fly drones, as
well as how to assemble and repair them, but are they also trained to use
different software packages for analyzing the images and resulting data, as
well as geolocalization and mapping.
"This is a major technological leap forward
for CIE" and its 4,500 employees, says CIE Director General Dominique
Kakou.
The drones enable CIE to "to inspect our
infrastructure and ensure its safety in a much more pinpointed way, and also to optimize our costs and expenses," he says.
Before now, all inspections were done by
helicopter or by teams on the ground, Mathon explains.
"Using helicopters is expensive, and on
foot, you have to send out teams to areas which can be difficult to reach,
which can create problems."
Immediate cost savings
The financial savings are undeniable: the cost of
purchasing a helicopter is around €500,000, with each one hour flight
costing another €1,200. A drone, however, costs between €2,000 and €100,000 to buy, its upkeep is simple and flight costs are negligible.
The company is hoping to improve its quality of
service by reducing the average length of power outages — which are still
relatively frequent in parts of the country — for its 1.3 million customers in Côte d'Ivoire. And it hopes to do the same for its customer base
in neighbouring Ghana, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Mali.
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Until now, inspections of
Côte d'Ivoire's electricity network have been done by helicopter or by teams on
the ground
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Since 2011, following a decade of political and
military crisis, Côte d'Ivoire has invested heavily in rebuilding its electricity
grid, with the authorities planning to plough another 16 billion euros into the
sector by 2030.
"The electricity sector is evolving very
fast, we must adopt new technologies and innovation," said Kakou who says
the company has already invested in electronic payment schemes and solar
energy.
Window on tomorrow
But the drone academy is not just serving the
electricity sector: it is open to any business in West Africa which could
benefit from the technology, from farming to mining, says Paul Ginies, director
of the Centre for Electrical Professions, CIE's training division.
"These new professions provide a way in for
young people," he says. "I'm sure that young Africans are going to
grab hold of this and surprise us by developing applications which we have not
thought of. It's their generation."
Alice Kouadio, another trainee pilot from the
first group of students, has no doubt. "The world is a drone, it's the promise of
tomorrow."
Originally published on DAILY MAIL UK WIRES
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