Launch HN: Voltair (YC W26) – Drone and charging network for power utilities

Hey HN! We’re Hayden, Ronan, Avi, and Warren of Voltair ( https://voltairlabs.com/ ). We’re making weatherized, hybrid-fixed drones deployed for power utility inspections. Here’s some footage: https://vimeo.com/1173862237/ac28095cc6?share=copy&fl=sv&fe=… and a photo of our latest prototype: https://imgur.com/a/bYHnqZ4 . The U.S. has 7M miles of power lines (enough to go to the moon and back 14 times), and they’re aging. Over 50% of all power flows through transformers that are at least 30 years old, which is about when they start to fail. Power line conductors are just bare metal with 4,000-765,000 volts sitting on ceramic insulators, usually held up by pieces of wood. It’s a cost effective and relatively reliable way to move power. But when the wood starts to rot, or the cotter pin falls out, and a live conductor is dropped on a dead tree on a windy day, you get devastating wildfires like the Palisades Fire in LA last year. Most utilities solve this problem with foot patrols. Linemen drive out with a clipboard or an iPad, and run through a checklist with binoculars to visually confirm everything is in order. A lineman can inspect about 50-150 poles per day, yet even the smallest rural electric cooperatives (with about ~20 employees) have about 50,000 distribution poles. Clearly the math doesn’t work out. As a result, a given utility pole is inspected about every 10 years (at least that’s what they tell their insurance adjuster). Helicopters are also used, but cost $25k to get off the ground, and more importantly, every year linemen die in helicopter crashes. Satellites can’t deliver the mm precision needed for these inspections. So drones have emerged as the best solution. Georgia Power saved 60% on operating expenses when they switched to using drones, and Xcel power found drones to find 60% more defects than foot patrols (because of pole-top vantage point). Problem #2: Drones are held back by the need to constantly recharge and FAA beyond-visual-line-of-sight (

原文链接: HackerNews