Southern Co. will begin exploring ways drones might be used to inspect thousands of miles of power lines.
The Atlanta-based energy company said it has received Federal Aviation Administration clearance to pilot unmanned aerial systems for business purposes. The FAA exemption was granted to the company’s Southern Company Services subsidiary.
Earlier this week, the FAA said Atlanta-based CNN is among companies partnering with the agency to research how drones can be used more broadly.
With more than 27,000 miles of transmission lines across 120,000 square miles in the Southeast, Southern said drones could help provide more detailed assessments of storm damage.
Chief Operating Officer Kimberly Greene said the quicker assessment could lead to faster power restoration.
The company said drones could also improve routine inspections, and do so more safely and cost-effectively.
Drones increasingly are being developed for commercial use as the FAA seeks to relax some of its rules, and utilities are the latest to see the technology’s benefits.
At the Sunbelt Ag Expo in Moultrie, aerospace firms showed farmers how drones could be used to gather multi-spectral images of crops to show which plants needed more fertilizer, water or nitrogen to head off problems.
Southern Co. said its initial drone research will be conducted at subsidiary Georgia Power’s Klondike Training Facility in Lithonia.
Atlanta-based CNN is part of the FAA’s Pathfinder program and will research how unmanned aircraft can be used for news-gathering in urban areas. The network and the FAA in January had announced an agreement on using drones for news-gathering.
David Vigilante, CNN’s senior vice president of legal, said the network will ” get to work and really dive in to see what is possible.”
“What we’re trying to do is push the envelope,” FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said at an Atlanta conference. “I realize everyone wants to get there. The important thing is how do we get there safely.”
The FAA is also partnering with Raleigh-based PrecisionHawk on crop surveying and with Fort Worth-based BNSF Railroad on railroad inspections with drones as part of the Pathfinder program.
The FAA also announced this week it plans to launch a new app that can tell recreational drone users or model aircraft hobbyists when and where it is safe to fly. The app, called B4UFLY, will launch for a limited number of beta users this summer before a full version is released later this year.
— Staff writer Kelly Yamanouchi contributed to this article.
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