Aegean Energy Group Uses GIS to Enhance Its Drone Program for Energy Projects

Aegean Energy Group has been a leader in providing development and construction management services for wind and solar energy projects globally. Projects like these, specifically in the energy sector, typically include large budgets, invested stakeholders, lengthy timelines, and multiple contractors representing different disciplines. Historically, Aegean has leveraged geographic information system (GIS) technology as a powerful project management system with Maps to Megawatts, the company’s web and mobile app solution. Maps to Megawatts is built on ArcGIS Online and houses project analytics, dashboards, and shareability features to support Aegean’s work. This solution has proved essential for observation, inspection, and tracking of project sites, resulting in more efficient and trusted work processes for the many teams and invested parties involved. Aegean’s latest breakthrough in optimization has been integrating its drone program with ArcGIS technology.

As drone programs are becoming an increasingly popular investment for private and public organizations, new challenges are surfacing. These challenges include working with multiple types of software to access and analyze drone imagery and, more importantly, managing the high volumes of collected imagery over time. More than hardware integration alone, robust imagery management and location context are becoming essential for carrying out effective drone missions. According to Woody Duncan, senior vice president of technology at Aegean, “If you don’t have a good way to deal with all the images in terms of how you’re going to manage all the information . . . that’ll get you!”

A key element in properly managing imagery for drone programs is historical reference. Drone programs deliver value when their imagery can reference itself, revealing changes within a target environment. These tracked changes can communicate project statuses and critical insights to contractors and stakeholders working on energy projects that require precision awareness of land boundaries and the surrounding climate. To achieve this, however, drone program managers need a streamlined way to access imagery that has accurate location data.

Aegean uses its drone program for a variety of energy project enhancements such as capturing site conditions prior to project launches for legal security and assurances with land management, or identifying necessary site improvements. Having built a foundation of leveraging location data in the company’s development and construction projects with GIS, Aegean got to a place with its project portfolio where staff wanted to manage their drone work in a single shared system, rather than relying on multiple types of software.

ArcGIS technology, including the drone mapping software Site Scan for ArcGIS, provided the single shared system Aegean staff needed for more efficient imagery data management and extraction from their drone missions. “Not everyone in the drone industry is GIS based with their foundations. And that’s OK. But it makes a big difference when you are,” said Duncan.

In addition to wanting to bring their drone work into their ArcGIS system, the Aegean team members needed drone mapping software that provided automation and facilitated the planning, capture, processing, and hosting elements of their missions. Site Scan, end-to-end cloud-based drone mapping software, provided Aegean staff the robust system they needed for effectively managing their drone mission workflows. Site Scan puts drone imagery into geospatial context, which has allowed Aegean’s team members to expand their insights and make more informed project decisions based on trustworthy location data. By consolidating their drone work into ArcGIS as their single shared system and deploying Site Scan for managing their drone flights, Aegean staff have been able to carry out terrain awareness missions, research on existing structures and wind turbine projects with precision and geographical accuracy that naturally considers changes in project environments over time.

This integrated system has also provided Aegean with security while working in the field. When conducting missions, drone program managers need to ensure that their pilots can access their flight planning and project area information while on-site. Having previously used other drone mapping software, Duncan and his team were familiar with the challenges associated with remote work, such as the inability to access mission maps and data in certain far-off project areas. Duncan’s staff have experienced the scenario of traveling hours to a project location far from Wi-Fi or cell signal and discovering that their drone mission plans and information were inaccessible, prohibiting successful drone imagery capture. “I’ve had my missions looked at on the iPad, everything’s good to go, and after driving two hours to a site on top of a mountain, I get out there and then my missions aren’t there,” said Duncan

Additionally, the team members would often have to work through inefficient image upload processes postflight, which could be time-consuming due to the size and amount of their imagery. Since integrating the drone program with ArcGIS and leveraging Site Scan, the Aegean team has been able to successfully carry out drone missions to remote areas and upload imagery to a secure cloud storage system immediately postflight. “Site Scan has been solid for us in the field when we’ve needed it,” said Duncan.

Aegean Energy Group’s strategic approach of building its drone program on a GIS foundation has set the company’s work apart, from execution to delivery. Organizing staff’s drone work under ArcGIS as a single shared system has made their imagery collection, storage, and analysis processes seamless and always anchored to location context, which unlocks a powerful historical perspective on their energy projects. For Aegean Energy Group, GIS “is core to everything that we do,” said Duncan. As drone programs continue to grow in popularity and prominence, integrating drone imagery with location context is a dynamic approach to expanding impact and insights.