drone Archives - International Finance

Europe’s drone rush: Ukraine war changes continent’s war playbook

International Finance Business Desk — Wed, 05 Aug 2026 01:00:09 +0000

Three years ago, most European venture capitalists would not take a meeting about weapons technology. Today, defence is arguably the hottest vertical on the continent’s cap tables, and no category within it is drawing more capital, policy attention, or industrial urgency than drones.

In the space of roughly two weeks in July 2026, NATO unveiled a multi-billion dollar drone initiative, the United Kingdom committed billions of pounds to drone and counter-drone systems, Germany moved to fund 50,000 drones bound for Ukraine, and Munich-based Helsing closed a funding round that valued the company at USD 18 billion.

Taken individually, each is a notable headline. Taken together, they mark a structural shift in how Europe thinks about defence – and where it is putting its money.

From battlefield lesson to procurement line item
The proximate cause is straightforward: war has changed, and Europe has been watching it happen next door. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, combined with Iran’s use of inexpensive Shahed-type drones in Middle East conflicts, has demonstrated that cheap, AI-enabled unmanned systems can extend the reach of conventional forces, gather intelligence continuously, and increasingly operate with minimal human input.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has framed this shift starkly, saying the alliance must become “drone-ready,” and describing drones as a decisive factor in the character of modern warfare. Allies have now committed to investing more than $40 billion in counter-drone capabilities over five years under that initiative.

The United Kingdom’s five billion pound “drone transformation” programme, part of its “Defence Investment Plan” published in late June, follows the same logic: Cheap, attritable, software-defined systems are being treated not as a niche capability but as a core pillar of force structure.

ALSO READ | Europe’s defence boom turns tanks and drones into stock markets’ favourite trade

Germany’s decision to fund 50,000 drones for Ukraine – a 90-million-euro order built around operating software from Zurich-based Auterion and hardware from Ukrainian manufacturer Skyfall – illustrates how quickly procurement cycles are compressing when the underlying technology is proven in combat rather than in a lab.

Auterion CEO Lorenz Meier has pointed to something analysts increasingly echo: This is the first major conflict fought at a moment when drones were mature enough to matter at scale, and the software layer – not just the airframe – is what determines whether a drone survives contact with electronic jamming.

Auterion’s operating system is designed to keep drones locked onto a target even when a signal is being jammed, and the company is building tools to let one operator direct coordinated swarms rather than piloting aircraft individually. That is a meaningful shift for the underlying economics of the sector: Value is migrating from the physical airframe towards the code and sensor fusion that make it useful.

The money behind the shift
The scale of capital now moving into this space is difficult to overstate. Core defence spending among European NATO members has roughly doubled since 2019, and under NATO’s new 3.5% of GDP target agreed at the 2025 Hague summit, McKinsey estimates European defence outlays could approach 800 billion euro by 2030 – around 2.9% of GDP.

Public markets have already priced in much of that shift: An equally weighted index of large, listed European defence companies has returned roughly 400% since 2022, with most of that outperformance concentrated since early 2025.

Venture capital has followed. According to Dealroom data cited in industry analysis, European defence, security, and resilience startups raised roughly USD 8.7 billion in 2025 – up 55% year-over-year, and nearly four times the level of five years earlier.

ALSO READ | Wingman drones and the rise of the AI-powered fighter escort

Defence now accounts for close to 10% of all European VC funding, up from under 1% before 2020, and about a third of European deep-tech funding overall. McKinsey’s own analysis found that investment in European defence-tech startups rose more than 500% between 2021 and 2024 compared with the preceding three years.Autonomous systems – drones chief among them – are the single largest draw within that pool of capital, alongside situational awareness, intelligence and reconnaissance technology, and space systems, which together absorbed roughly 44% of 2025’s defence-tech funding by some estimates.

Helsing’s new valuation, reached in an oversubscribed round led by US investors Dragoneer and Lightspeed, cements it as Europe’s best-capitalised pure-play defence-tech company; peers such as Munich-based Quantum Systems and Portugal’s Tekever have also reached unicorn status on the strength of drones and reconnaissance systems that have been tested in Ukraine and are now moving into NATO procurement pipelines.

Globally, the military drone market itself is sizable and growing, though estimates vary by methodology: Industry forecasts from firms such as MarketsandMarkets and Fortune Business Insights put the sector in the range of USD 15–USD 22 billion by 2030, while broader “drone warfare” market definitions that include counter-drone and swarm technology run considerably higher.

What most forecasts agree on is the growth driver: AI-enabled autonomy and battery-powered small systems are the fastest-growing segments, a trend that maps closely onto what has proven effective in Ukraine.

Beyond the airframe: where the real opportunity sits
Morningstar analyst Loredana Muharremi has described the direction of travel as a “layered battlefield,” in which a single platform like a tank no longer just fires shells but launches its own drones, receives live targeting data from satellites and other unmanned aircraft, and operates as one node in a networked force.

That vision has direct implications for where investors and corporate strategists are placing bets: The opportunity extends well beyond companies that physically build drones into the ecosystem that lets them operate together – secure communications, battle-management software, artificial intelligence, satellite-based sensing, and electronic warfare.

ALSO READ | Can Britain’s 298 billion pound ‘Defence Investment Plan’ keep the country safe?

That is also, notably, where much of the structural risk in Europe’s defence-tech boom sits. Despite the surge in funding, American investors still supply a large share of the capital flowing into European defence-tech – estimates from multiple analyses put the US share of late-stage rounds at roughly 40%-65%, and the United States still generates several times more venture deal volume in defence than Europe does.

Helsing’s own funding round, while framed as a milestone for European defence sovereignty, was led by US firms even as the company remains majority European-owned. European public R&D spending on defence – around USD 40 billion between 2020 and 2024, according to comparisons cited in recent industry analysis – remains a fraction of the roughly USD 520 billion the US spent over the same period.

There are also structural bottlenecks that money alone does not solve. Europe’s defence procurement processes are frequently criticised as slow, fragmented across 27-plus national systems, and poorly matched to the iterative pace at which venture-backed startups want to build and ship hardware.

Exit paths remain narrow: With essentially no defence-tech IPOs in Europe in 2025, acquisition by an established prime contractor – the likes of Airbus, BAE Systems, Rheinmetall, Thales, or Leonardo – is, for now, the dominant route to liquidity for founders and their investors.

That is reshaping the competitive landscape into one where nimble software-and-autonomy startups increasingly partner with, rather than displace, the continent’s traditional industrial primes.

New hubs, new winners
The geography of this boom is also shifting. Munich has emerged as one of the fastest-growing defence-tech clusters in Europe, drawing on the region’s automotive supply-chain expertise for precision manufacturing of drone frames and space hardware. The UK holds five of Europe’s Top 10 defence-tech funding hubs, including Oxford, London, and Cambridge, while Germany’s strength is concentrated in Munich.

Second-tier hubs in Poland and the Baltic states are producing a high volume of early-stage deals, though founders there still typically travel to London or Berlin when they need the larger checks required to build at factory scale.

Institutional structures are adapting alongside the capital. The “NATO Innovation Fund,” a vehicle backed by two dozen allied governments, has reviewed well over a thousand startup applications and selected several dozen for investment and support through its DIANA accelerator programme.

ALSO READ | European defence company Destinus tests deep-strike system Ruta Block 2

National initiatives are following a similar model: Ukraine’s Brave1 platform channels funding and battlefield feedback directly to drone makers, while a new EU pilot scheme called AGILE aims to issue smaller grants to startups solving urgent operational problems within months rather than years – a modest sum by industry standards, but one designed to fix the slow ‘middle’ of the funding pipeline between early research grants and late-stage growth capital.

The business case, in short
For corporate strategists and investors, the drone boom is best understood not as a bet on aircraft but as a bet on three converging trends: The militarisation of low-cost autonomy, the software-ification of the battlefield, and a generational reset in how much European governments are willing to spend on defence.

Companies with genuine technical depth in AI-driven autonomy, resilient communications, sensor fusion and electronic warfare are positioned to capture disproportionate value relative to those making airframes alone – a dynamic already visible in how capital has concentrated around software-centric players like Helsing and Auterion rather than pure hardware manufacturers.

The risk, for now, is less about demand – which appears firmly secured by NATO’s spending targets and by the operational lessons of Ukraine – and more about execution: Whether Europe’s procurement bureaucracies, capital markets and industrial base can absorb this money fast enough to build genuine strategic depth, rather than simply bidding up valuations on a narrow set of already-prominent companies.

How that plays out over the next two to three years will determine whether this moment is remembered as the point Europe built a durable defence-tech industry, or merely a very well-funded one.

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Skyller: Revolutionising asset management efficiency with cutting-edge AI

IFM Correspondent — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 08:53:40 +0000

In today’s AI-powered digital era, advanced technology is changing how we manage assets. The Skyller Platform from Thailand-based Skyller Solutions has become a great flagbearer of this change. The solution uses AI and machine learning to inspect assets automatically, making the process more accurate, efficient, and quicker—reducing result interpretation time by 80%.

“Skyller’s platform uses different machine learning models tailored for specific industries like oil and gas, petrochemicals, and infrastructure. These models are trained with industry-specific data to find problems accurately,” the venture told International Finance.

Machine learning and innovative technology are making asset inspections and management easier and more effective, especially in sectors like oil and gas, renewable energy, and construction etc. Skyller Platform, intending to provide redefining autonomous services for infrastructure inspection and monitoring, has optimised itself as a tool for end-to-end process for data collection, analysis and visualisation for smart decision making.

The “Crack Detection Model” of Skyller finds cracks in flare systems in the petrochemical and oil and gas industries using drone inspections (combined with AI-driven analytics), with about 70% accuracy, thereby enhancing the overall safety and efficiency of these critical infrastructures.

When it comes to advanced storage tank inspection, Skyller uses drone-based inspections and machine learning for precise and comprehensive inspections. The “Corrosion Detection Model,” on the other hand, spots corrosion and its severity on offshore facilities from drone inspections, achieving over 80% accuracy.

Using drones equipped with multiple sensor technology and AI analytics for safe inspections, Skyller further minimises downtime and costs, when it comes to infrastructure inspection-related activities within a confined space. In terms of detecting damage in concrete structures like bridges and buildings, Skyller boasts an impressive 78% accuracy. When it comes to identifying materials used in road construction through drone surveys, the accuracy metre touches over 80% mark.

Skyller has been deploying its drone fleets, equipped with AI analytics and machine language, to carry out safe and efficient inspections of pipelines and pressure vessels, while minimising downtime and risks, by detecting mechanical issues early. The same mechanism has been fielded to monitor methane levels to ensure environmental safety and compliance.

Promising Road Ahead

Skyller’s mission is to be a trusted partner in delivering exceptional data intelligence and actionable insights for sustainable asset management. With a strong commitment to continuous innovation, Skyller harnesses the power of AI and machine learning to elevate asset integrity management, ensuring their customers remain at the forefront of industry advancements. Their cutting-edge solutions empower clients to make informed decisions and proactively maintain assets, optimising performance and extending their lifecycle. Skyller is paving a promising road ahead, where advanced technology meets strategic insight for sustainable asset management.

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Start-up of the Week: Auterion & software-defined future of UAV industry

IFM Correspondent — Wed, 17 Apr 2024 04:48:31 +0000

In today’s episode of the “Start-up of the Week,” International Finance will talk about Auterion, which has emerged as the drone software platform built for enterprises, to make large-scale drone operations simple, safe and fully integrated in workflows.

With offices in California and Switzerland, the venture, as of April 2024, has raised USD 25 million in venture-backed funding from investors such as Lakestar, Mosaic Ventures, Costanoa Ventures, and Tectonic Ventures, while having a rich clientele including General Electric (GE) Aviation, Quantum Systems, Impossible Aerospace, and the United States Department of Defence.

Unifying A Workforce Of Autonomous Robots

Auterion’s drone software is a different breed altogether, as it streamlines operations, elevates integration, and maximises automation for its clients, all on a single digital platform, while increasing safety, efficiency and sustainability with the operating system for autonomous robots.

Auterion’s cutting-edge operating system for autonomous computing is empowering a diverse range of autonomous robots to perform high-risk to mundane tasks, deliver goods, and aid in life-saving missions. Staying true to its operational versatility, the drone software start-up is powering a range of autonomous vehicles, including multirotors, fixed-wing, VTOLs, and ground vehicles.

A very good example of Auterion’s operational versatility is “Freefly Astro,” which is a connected drone for enterprise workflows. The product is a result of the collaboration between Auterion and its industry peer Freefly. Astro is a ruggedised drone, which enables enterprise workflows through standardised user interfaces, automated data transmission and real-time 4G data connectivity. The lightweight drone is perfect for jobs like image mapping, delivering goods, carrying out infrastructure inspections and search & rescue operations.

Using Auterion’s expertise, a drone manufacturer can accelerate its go-to-market strategy by utilising tried-and-tested software and hardware for faster integration and production scale-up, apart from expanding the capabilities of an enterprise’s robotics fleet. The client venture can also streamline its enterprise-ready solutions like end-to-end workflows, delivering data to the cloud, and connecting with existing apps, all through Auterion’s help.

The start-up is also providing state-of-the-art drone payload tools like MAVLink and the Pixhawk Payload Bus. For its enterprise-grade operations, Auterion also offers a variety of enterprise-grade payload options like a full camera, an app for advanced drone training and mission planning, cloud connection for live video streams, real-time monitoring and over-the-air firmware updates via onboard LTE.

What Are The Key Products?

Let’s start with AuterionOS, which is the only vendor-independent operating system that runs onboard a fleet of interconnected robots. The onboard software platform consists of a flight controller and an operating system running on the mission computer. AuterionOS allows robots to perform advanced operations by enabling specific autonomous actions, ensuring safe mission execution, establishing communication with other software and hardware, and providing LTE connectivity to transfer data in real-time to the user and the cloud.

AuterionOS also allows the installation of apps, enabling features that are relevant to the client enterprise’s purposes, in order to enhance the latter’s operational experience. A very good example here is AuterionOS powering the drone fleet of its industry peer DroneUp which operates in the delivery hubs of Walmart, the largest American retailer, to provide 4 million US households with last-mile delivery.

AuterionOS helps its users to operate a variety of vehicles and payloads with the same experience and workflow, while bringing elements like APIs into the play, to expand the range of drone cameras, radios and payloads. AuterionOS, while running on multiple drone models and supporting different payloads, also enables a unified workforce of autonomous robots with the world’s leading operating system for autonomous computing. Here Auterion Suite comes into the play.

With every mission, data gets automatically transferred into the cloud-based Auterion Suite to provide real-time information captured by the robot while it’s still operating, without any manual intervention. All flight logs get automatically uploaded for every vehicle and every pilot, and log data gets analysed and made available to download as compliance reports.

Auterion Suite enables holistic and scalable fleet management by providing updated information on the vehicle health status, predictive maintenance actions and over-the-air software updates. Robots send operational data and live video automatically to the Suite, while they are still in the air. The Suite also enables end-to-end automated workflow, from the vehicle operating in the field, over the air to the cloud and into third-party applications to process the captured data.

Auterion Suite is a foolproof management solution for a client enterprise’s robotics programme and missions, by handling software updates, tracking vehicles for predictive maintenance and monitoring components to flag operational issues.

Next is Auterion Mission Control, which is the app to plan and execute autonomous missions for any Auterion-powered vehicle. With simple controls and intuitive views, the tool allows a seamless robotics mission planning and execution experience for the client enterprise, especially in terms of standardising operations and reducing training time and resources, apart from scaling up missions and saving execution time by planning from remote locations.

Finally, we have Skynode X, a fully integrated autopilot and mission computer for drones operating under the Auterion software platform. Compared to other drone autopilots, Skynode X transforms robotic vehicles from mere mobile cameras into connected autonomous systems.

Solutions Galore

By collaborating with the start-up, ventures can manage their diverse fleet of robotic vehicles in a single asset management system that handles all software updates, tracks every drone for predictive maintenance, and monitors component health. The business can also download compliance reports per pilot or vehicle data from the cloud, prepare drone missions with pre-flight planning checklists and check real-time traffic information.

From Auterion, drone manufacturers get tried-and-tested software and hardware for faster integration and production scale-up, apart from the ability to offer enterprise-ready robotics fleet with elements like end-to-end workflows, cloud-powered data delivering mechanism, and integration with existing apps, built on industry standards MAVLink and the Pixhawk Payload Bus.

For app developers, AuterionOS comes with payload integrations and on-board applications, so that the professionals become part of an ecosystem that reaches more users and has a bigger impact.

An app developer can integrate his/her services and payloads to work across the whole fleet of Auterion-powered systems. It covers mechanisms like flight controllers, onboard components and the ground station/robotics data workflow in the cloud.

Auterion In News

The start-up, as of April 2024, along with its partners like Freefly, Deltaquad, Lucid Bots, Spleenlab and Sony, is providing its drone software solutions across all the major industry verticals, from cargo and energy to infrastructure and agriculture. Auterion, through its partnerships with drone manufacturers, software developers and payload makers, is shaping the future of both the UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) industry and the mainstream economy. The domain of robotics is heading towards the software-defined future and Auterion’s products give us a sneak peek of how things will look in the coming years.

In March 2024, Kraken Technology Group, a maritime technology leader specialising in the disruptive design and manufacturing of high-performance platforms, and Auterion announced a strategic partnership to exponentially develop autonomous capabilities in the high-performance littoral security boat sector. Auterion will develop and implement modular and low-cost autonomy software and UxV systems for Kraken’s K3 SCOUT and K4 MANTA uncrewed platforms.

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Start-up of the Week: Flock & ‘Connected Insurance’ for commercial vehicle fleets

IFM Correspondent — Wed, 20 Mar 2024 05:04:57 +0000

In today’s episode of the ‘Start-up of the Week‘, International Finance will talk about United Kingdom-based scale-up company Flock, which was founded in 2015 with a vision of making the world “Quantifiably Safer” with connected fleet insurance that enables and incentivises safer driving.

Flock’s specialisation lies in issuing insurance for commercial drone operators, using real-time data to provide policies that are tailored to individual flights. In 2023, the venture raised USD 38 million in a Series B funding round led by Octopus Ventures and from 2015-March 2024, has raised just over USD 59 million.

Trusted by Land Rover, Amazon Logistics and Virtuo, Flock uses its clients’ telematics data to help them pinpoint safety risks in their commercial motor fleets. These clients can even use the venture’s “Safety Insights” to identify their fleets’ high risk drivers, before taking proactive actions and improving the overall safety scores.

Also, Flock’s customers can earn a rebate of up to 10% of their fleet insurance premium by reducing speeding and by driving less than their estimated mileage.

Knowing The Company In Detail

Flock plays the “Insurance Game” differently from its industry peers, as its real-time, data-driven approach means that the venture is able to price connected vehicle insurance on a per-second basis, whilst giving fleet owners the insights they need to improve safety.

“We don’t just pay claims; we help our customers prevent them. We now insure thousands of vehicles with connected insurance. We are trusted by hundreds of businesses in the UK, and we’re proud to have support from some of the world’s leading venture capital funds, including Octopus Ventures, Social Capital/Chamath, and Anthemis,” the venture stated further.

Flock, which has emerged as one of the United Kingdom’s fastest-growing insurtechs backed by some of the world’s leading venture capital funds, became the gold winner of the “Excellence in Underwriting Prize” during the Insurance Times Awards 2022.

Flock started creating waves in its early days as it started its operational journey by providing insurance to commercial drone operators such as Netflix, the BBC and a medical delivery service operated by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).

The company’s “real time risk engine” back then allowed it to charge customers per flight instead of asking them to take out an annual policy like many traditional insurers do. From July 2020 onwards, it expanded the same offering to companies in the automotive sector.

Ed Klinger, the venture’s CEO, told CNBC back in 2021 that his start-up wanted to disrupt the “clunky and slow” USD 160 billion commercial motor insurance market, dominated by traditional insurance firms like Aviva and Direct Line. And now in March 2024, Flock’s connected fleet insurance method is winning the laurels.

“We’ve built a technology that can essentially price insurance on a per second and per metre basis. Every single journey is priced independently. We’re building a core piece of the financial infrastructure that’s going to allow those companies to succeed and help those companies mitigate risk, and ultimately save lives,” Klinger stated back in 2021.

Since then, self-drive hire companies like Virtuo and Jaguar Land Rover’s The Out have signed up as Flock’s customers and the start-up’s growth journey has accelerated like anything.

Here Are The Product Line-Ups

Flock has insurance solutions for both brokers and commercial fleets. The motor fleet solutions for brokers come with fast quotes, fair prices and expert service. Upon working with Flock, brokers get online policy management with expert support, along with quick generation of customer quotes (in hours) and real-time reporting of policies sold and commission earned.

“Flock uses telematics data to ensure your client’s premium always reflects the trips they make and the risks they take. Monitor your portfolio’s Safety Scores on Flock’s digital dashboards and help clients improve safety with Risk Insights. Reward fleets with discounts when they improve safety and help them reduce claims frequency to unlock a better price at renewal,” the venture commented further.

In terms of working with commercial fleets, Flock’s solutions cover fleets of 10-plus vehicles that rent out cars and vans to other drivers, fleets of over 20 vehicles transporting employees and equipment and fleets of 10-plus vehicles transporting items for other people.

In 2021, Flock partnered with the European arm of Asia’s largest insurer, Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance, to transform how commercial fleet insurance is priced and distributed. The two firms have jointly developed connected motor fleet insurance products, which are now available for self-drive hire, own goods, courier and tradesperson fleets in the United Kingdom.

A marriage between Aioi Nissay’s automobile sector experience and Flock’s risk intelligence and policy management platform has resulted in fleet managers getting insurance products tailored to their operations and designed to help improve safety over time.

Since Flock’s launch into the flexible connected motor insurance market, the insurtech venture reportedly helped one of its initial clients achieve a saving of 25% on its previous insurance policy.

Talking about the partnership between Flock and Jaguar Land Rover’s “The Out,” the latter, which enables its customers to hire vehicles and get them delivered to their homes or offices in a couple of clicks, uses Flock’s usage-based fleet policy. “The Out” only pays for insurance when vehicles are on hire. This has allowed it to embed insurance in its offering, meaning all vehicles arrive with customers fully insured and ready to drive.

Flock’s insurance mechanism for commercial fleets is known for proactively enabling and incentivising safer driving. The whole policy can be handled by the client online, where the venture can add new vehicles, and make insurance claims easily, apart from saving up to 25% with personalised prices based on the venture’s fleet safety. The client business can even access Flock’s free safety workshops to minimise their fleet risk and unlock premium rebates.

One such successful example of this particular product is its usage by the fast-growing vehicle movement solution Engineius. The Birmingham-based venture is using Flock to insure the hundreds of vehicles it moves for commercial fleets every day. The move has enabled Engineius to enhance the experience of its customers, while effortlessly aligning its commercial activity with insurance costs.

Flock provides dedicated support to safeguard its customers from costly third party insurance claims. For this, the venture has appointed global claims specialists Davies Group, whose job is to provide 24/7 claims handling on the start-up’s behalf.

The Road Ahead

Flock raised USD 38 million in its Series B funding round in February 2023.

“This capital will be used to fuel the company’s expansion into new segments of the automobile industry as well as new geographies, both supported by an increase in the size of its data science and engineering teams and more than doubling the size of its UK team in the coming years,” reported Tech.Eu.

“At Flock, we believe that insurers should help customers save time, money, and even lives. With our radically different insurance model, enabled by an immense amount of data, we hope to actively reduce the number of people needlessly killed or injured on the road. The best possible claim experience is no claim at all” he continued “We want to help our fleet customers predict and prevent crashes – before they even take place,” Klinger commented during the fundraiser.

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PwC sees US$9.46 billion drone solutions market for power, utilities industries

International Finance Desk — Fri, 13 Oct 2017 07:34:34 +0000

The global market in drone-powered solutions for the power and utilities industries is worth as much as US$9.46 billion a year, PwC estimates in a new report that illustrates how creative uses of unmanned aerial vehicles are disrupting the way companies build, operate and maintain their networks.

A flamethrowing drone used to clear rubbish from power lines is one of the more dramatic examples of innovative uses for unmanned aerial vehicles found in ‘Clarity from above: Leveraging drone technologies to secure utilities systems’, from PwC’s global Drone Powered Solutions team. More prosaic applications range from geospatial surveys in pre-investment planning, through monitoring of the construction process and managing assets, to proactively dealing with threats such as overgrown vegetation.

Global power transmission networks are forecast to increase to 6.8 million circuit kilometres in 2020, up 15% from the 2016 level, as energy production is reshaped by the rise of renewables, and demand grows in emerging markets such as China and India. Regulators are increasingly concerned about reliability, offering incentives to reduce outages and penalties for downtime. Every year the sector loses US$169 billion due to energy network failures and forced shutdowns.

“The power and utilities sector faces numerous new challenges as it stands on the threshold of a digital revolution,” said Drone Powered Solutions Partner Michał Mazur. “Pressure to shift to renewables from fossil fuels, while reducing prices, is forcing companies to look for new ways to stay profitable. As companies reinvent their business models, drones are helping increase the reliability of energy production, transmission and distribution.”

The latest report in PwC’s ‘Clarity from above’ series includes stories of how creative utilities managers around the world are turning to drones to solve some of the industry’s most intractable problems, increasing both reliability and worker safety. For example, in most countries monitoring vegetation growth and trimming trees near power lines is the single biggest maintenance cost for power companies. Drones can make the trimming process more efficient, as well as providing data that helps predict and avoid damage from falling trees.

“Applying drone technologies to capture a variety of data on power plants, electrical substations or power lines is becoming a change driver for the entire power and utilities industry,” said Massimo Pellegrino, a PwC partner who contributed to the report. “Not only can drones gather standardised, tangible data in a more efficient way than people located on the ground, but also, unlike manned aerial vehicles, they can do it without risking human life.”

Water utilities are also finding that drones can be more useful than satellites in the process of monitoring water quality. PwC’s Geospatial.App software allows the integration, presentation and management of mapping data gathered by drones equipped with visual, infrared and other cameras, which is useful in areas including monitoring the process of infrastructure construction, tracking the need for maintenance and assessing damage after natural or man-made disasters.

Today’s report is the third in the ‘Clarity from above’ series. The first, released in May 2016, looked at the overall global market for applications of drone technology, estimating its value at more than $127 billion. The second report found a US$45 billion market for applications in the transport infrastructure sector.

“To remain competitive on the market, and stay current in the changing business ecosystem which is being challenged by new technologies, companies from the power and utilities sector need to broaden their horizons,” said Norbert Schwieters, PwC’s Global Power and Utilities Leader. “They need to perceive new technologies, such as drones, as opportunities to increase effectiveness, reduce costs and improve internal processes.”

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