Investment in vegetation management is essential to the delivery of safe, reliable electricity at the lowest possible cost.
Tree contacts are the second leading cause of outage minutes for Newfoundland Power’s customers behind equipment failures. The percentage of outage minutes for Newfoundland Power customers related to tree contacts has increased steadily over from 2020-2023. Changing climate conditions can also pose challenges to vegetation management. Beyond increasing high-wind events, Newfoundland and Labrador is expected to experience a significant increase in total growing day to day temperatures and has experienced more wildfires consistent with the rest of Canada.
Currently, Newfoundland Power identifies planned vegetation management work as part of scheduled distribution and transmission line inspections. Newfoundland Power partnered with a solutions provider that pairs artificial intelligence (AI) and satellite imagery to inform improved vegetation management planning. As part of a pilot, AI evaluated satellite imagery for 500 kilometres of Newfoundland Power’s distribution lines, assessing risks and analyzing upcoming vegetation management needs. Recommendations from the pilot will be incorporated into the future vegetation management practices helping the company optimize vegetation management based on predicted growth rates.
The Company has initiated a second pilot program with this technology partner for managing biodiversity, carbon, and other neutral capital metrics as part of a project to upgrade a substation distribution feeder from single-phase to three-phase. The pilot will also use AI and satellites focusing on areas including habitat classification, site management, reporting, and environmental monitoring.
