American Electric Power (AEP) has awarded a contract to URMC and its partner ArborMetrics Solutions to manage and control vegetation threats on the utility's 6,000 miles of transmission lines in 12 states. The contract provides AEP a turnkey solution for using proprietary remote sensing technologies that, when combined with URMC software and tools, will inventory AEP's transmission assets as well as nearby vegetation that could threaten power transmission lines due to weather or normal vegetation growth.

Using URMC's proprietary algorithms and online software, this data is then made available to the desktop of utility company managers who can view these threats in real time and immediately act to mitigate them by deploying tree crews through ArborMetrics Solutions to the exact location using handheld GIS-enabled devices.

Federal regulations place stringent responsibility and accountability on utilities to manage the risk that vegetation poses to the nation's power supply.

"URMC and ArborMetric's turnkey risk management solution enhances AEP's compliance with federal mandates while improving AEP's reliability and efficiency," said Adam Rousselle, URMC president and CEO. "By providing the utility with real-time intelligence directly to their desktop, managers can see threats as they arise and act quickly to eliminate them, avoiding outages and enhancing public safety."

Working from this intelligence, utilities can deploy tree crews through ArborMetrics Solutions to any point in North America, cutting, mitigating and removing vegetation that could threaten power transmission lines.

Mon Jun 30 09:46:00 CDT 2008