Project VOLT will use docked drones for post-storm grid inspection in northwest England
SP Electricity North West, Skyports Drone Services and eSmart Systems announced Project VOLT, a trial of remotely piloted docked drones for rapid fault finding and asset-condition monitoring on the electricity network in the Lake District. Captured imagery is intended to feed eSmart Systems' AI-based inspection workflow.
Sun, 27 Sep 2026
Storm response is a strong case for remote drone infrastructure because the value rises when roads are blocked, crews are stretched and damaged assets must be located quickly.
The useful benchmark will be time from an outage or weather event to actionable inspection data. Watch how the trial handles communications loss, unsuitable weather, dock availability, image quality and escalation from automated analysis to a human decision.