- Company: Klickitat PUD
- Location: Washington
- Solution: AiDASH Intelligent Vegetation Management System™ (IVMS™)
About Klickitat PUD:
The KPUD service area spans a diverse and challenging environment. From the heavily forested slopes of the Cascades to high desert terrain further east, it includes unique geographic features such as the Columbia River Gorge and Simcoe Mountain Range.
KPUD’s network is vast and diverse, with over 2,000 miles of overhead lines and over 14,000 customers. The region faces extreme weather conditions, including ice, freezing rain, wet heavy snow, and high winds that introduce challenges such as wildfire risks, weather-related damage, and vegetation encroachment.
Problem: A need to streamline.
In recent years, KPUD faced escalating challenges in vegetation management:
- Budget rightsizing: KPUD’s vegetation management budget needed to be re-examined. What KPUD was spending wasn’t keeping up with vegetation management needs. There was more work than resources, and the organization needed to become more strategic.
- Severe damage: Recurring severe weather events meant fall-ins from outside the ROW were becoming an increasingly common problem.
- Wildfire potential: The risk of wildfires continues to be significant in the region due to a mix of hot/dry seasons and dense vegetation, creating a need for proactive measures to mitigate hazards.
- Operational limitations: Crews relied on paper-based systems to track vegetation management activities span by span, which was inefficient and lacked scalability.
KPUD and its outside crews needed to take a more strategic planning approach to its vegetation management organization to get out in front of ongoing challenges.
“The visibility and insight from AiDASH has given us the ability to put together a comprehensive 5-year plan. It’s making our organization more strategic.”
Mark Garner,
Engineering SupervisorSolution: Better visibility leads to better decisions.
To address these challenges, KPUD turned to the AiDASH Intelligent Vegetation Management System™ (IVMS™) in the beginning of 2024. IVMS is a satellite-first, AI-enabled vegetation management platform that provides actionable vegetation insights and gives teams the ability to modernize and transform their vegetation management practice. The transition marked a significant step in modernizing vegetation management for KPUD:
- Proactive and strategic approach: KPUD shifted from a reactive, ad hoc strategy (trimming based on time cycles) to a methodical, data-driven, condition-based approach powered by IVMS.
- Enhanced training and onboarding: AiDASH staff provided hands-on training for KPUD crews, complemented by refresher sessions from KPUD Engineering Supervisor Mark Garner, who oversees the vegetation management operation.
- Field technology integration: Field crews adopted tablets and the IVMS app, which helped them streamline processes and improve efficiency. The IVMS app provided intuitive documentation, thorough assistance, and actionable insights in the field. Feedback from contractors and staff has been very positive.
- Risk assessment: The IVMS risk module enabled superintendents to identify high-risk areas and prioritize work accordingly. This allowed KPUD to assign tasks strategically and maximize resource utilization.
Impact: A 5-year strategic plan.
The implementation of IVMS has delivered transformative results, leading Garner and KPUD to develop a long-term, 5-year plan that includes:
- Hazard tree mitigation: KPUD can identify and address hazardous trees outside the ROW before they cause damage.
- Fire mitigation: The utility now tracks fire mitigation efforts with detailed documentation, including before-and-after photos and system records.
- Improved decision-making: Real-time insights and visibility into vegetation conditions enable better, more informed decisions across KPUD’s network.
- Wildfire Mitigation Planning (WMP): By incorporating wildfire hazard areas into its vegetation management strategy, KPUD demonstrates its commitment to safety and proactive risk management to both customers and state regulators.
Today, KPUD leverages AiDASH IVMS to survey thousands of square miles of service territory, ensuring that high-risk areas are mapped, analyzed, and managed effectively. With a more strategic and data-driven approach, KPUD is achieving greater efficiency, reliability, and cost-effectiveness in its vegetation management efforts.
About AiDASH
AiDASH is making critical infrastructure industries climate-resilient and secure. Using our satellite-first platform for grid inspection and monitoring, our AI applications enable electric and gas utilities and landowners to transform how they manage and maintain assets. Our customers deliver ROI in their first year of deployment with reduced costs, improved reliability, and advancements in sustainability goals. AiDASH exists to safeguard critical infrastructure and secure the future of humanAIty™.
Learn more at www.aidash.com.
AiDASH is the leader in Intelligent Vegetation Management
Ready to see it in action for yourself?
Get a demo today.