Why Every Utility Will Have a Drone Fleet Sooner Than You Think
What if your next utility crew didn’t drive—but flew?
In this episode of Power Perspectives from Energy Central, Christina Park, Skydio’s Senior Director of Energy Strategy, shares how autonomous drones are transforming utility operations—from faster storm response to safer inspections and AI-powered asset intelligence.
With firsthand insights from her experience in asset management and strategic operations at NYPA, Christina breaks down how utilities can scale from pilot projects to full-fledged drone programs, and why waiting isn’t an option.
- When it comes to grid resilience and reliability, how can utilities better
- leverage technology amid growing risks?
- With an increase in severe weather events, aging infrastructure, and a
- need for more proactive asset management, utilities are looking for
- solutions that can provide faster insights, greater automation, and
- improved safety. Can drones be the missing piece to this
- puzzle?
- That's exactly what we'll be diving into today on Power Perspectives, how
- autonomous drones are shifting from pilot projects to
- enterprise-wide solutions that help utilities detect failures before
- they happen, reduce field crew risks.
- And for our regular listeners, a quick reminder that new in
- 2025, we now have video accompanying this
- podcast.
- If you're used to just listening on your favorite podcast app, check out the show
- notes for the YouTube link where you can now watch Power Perspective interviews
- in full. And I'm Jason Price, coming to you from New York City.
- Joining me as always is Matt Chester, podcast producer and community
- manager for Energy Central, and coming to us from Orlando, Florida.
- Matt, how prevalent are drones being discussed in the Energy
- Central
- community?
- It's a good question, Jason, and I'd say drones as a topic, it's
- definitely evolved at, on Energy Central from a curiosity
- to, uh, being a serious and, and tangible conversation.
- We're seeing more utility pros not just talking about drones in
- the context of maybe post-storm surveys or wildfire response, but as
- part of a, a broader strategic toolkit for proactive
- asset
- management. Uh, putting that another way, the sentiment's shifted from, "Should
- we try drones?" to, "How do we scale and plug it into our core operations?"
- So when the tool comes up in our community,
- it's about utility professionals
- seeking out how to turn these, uh, drones from maybe tech demos
- into day-to-day utility workhorses, and I think today's, uh,
- conversation on the
- podcast, it's gonna hit right at the heart of
- that evolution.
- Thanks, Matt. And before we jump in, I wanna give a big thanks to
- Skydio, the sponsor of today's episode.
- And today's discussion is set to bring real-world case studies,
- industry
- insights, and a look at what's next in AI-powered
- grid inspections.
- Joining us is Christina Park, senior director of energy strategy at
- Skydio. Before that, Christina was with the New York Power Authority for
- 15 years, leading digital transformation
- initiatives.
- So clearly, she's at the forefront of drone
- innovation, and she approaches it with
- a deep understanding of how utilities can adopt and scale these technologies
- effectively. So Christina Park, welcome to Energy Central's Power
- Perspectives
- podcast.
- Thanks, Jason. Happy to be here.
- As are we. So we're thrilled to jump in.
- So Christina, you've had a front row seat to the
- evolution of drones in
- utilities. How has the landscape taken hold in recent
- years, and what
- is the current landscape of opportunities for drones in utilities?
- So in the last decade, drones have really gone from being R&D
- initiatives, um, and seen as toys on the field that are
- experimental, to more of a vetted technology tool that's
- now part of the
- actual workflow. So when we talk about operations
- and maintenance, um,
- across many different departments on the field, whether you're in engineering or
- whether you're actually a lineman out there, um, doing the work, we've seen that
- drones are actually embedded in ways that they weren't before.
- And what's exciting is that we're now at a place where, uh,
- drone and drone
- solutions are becoming infrastructure, and I'll talk a little bit more about
- this as we go. But the concept of being able to dock a
- drone and
- use it without a human being there physically to fly it, um, in the
- presence of the drone, really opens up a new world for utility
- operations and maintenance. So with the, uh, remote operations, you could really
- fly them from anywhere in the world and share the results of
- that in real time to
- any of your stakeholders. So I think that is the current landscape.
- Uh, I wanna say future, but I, I think the future is here now.
- And as I mentioned, I know you come from, come to this program with a deep history
- working at utilities. So can you share how you think that's
- shaped
- your perspective on the best way that utility companies can, should
- approach these types of drone opportunities?
- So in my most recent tenure at the New York Power Authority and in
- working with many other utilities since I came to Skydio two years ago, I found
- that it's really important in any endeavor to start by establishing
- what problem or problems you're trying to solve.
- So I think one of the mistakes that's commonly made is to get enamored by
- technology and to think about using technology for the sake of
- digital transformation or for the sake of that evolution itself.
- But I think that it really comes back to saying, "Well, what is the outcome that I
- wanna see by making a change?" So implementing any sort of change is
- challenging for many reasons, uh, but if we go back to first principles
- thinking, I believe that solutions are best found when complex problems are
- broken down into very simple ones, uh, and then prioritized.
- So when it comes to technology like drones, it's not just a matter of flying
- them, but thinking of them as advanced, autonomous, and intelligent
- sensors, uh, that give the opportunity for data
- and information to be
- collected and distributed to the stakeholders that need them most.
- All right. I, I want you to think about problems
- that drones are able to solve
- now in the utility sector. What are some, say, case studies or the most
- successful opportunities that you've seen, you know, penetrate the market?
- And then what are types of solutions that you think are coming next in our
- increasing digital industry?
- Sure. I think even now what we can see is drones
- give a very easy solution to the problem of putting people in
- the air. So many of the problems that utilities face, the
- defects that occur, um, the damage that happens on the aging
- infrastructure and, and the grid, a lot of them are just difficult to see
- from the ground. And so I think there are a couple problems that are very easily
- solved, and utilities are doing this today,
- by putting their eyes up in the sky.
- So not having to put somebody physically up in a bucket truck or
- physically rappelling down the side of a dam or, or, uh, some sort
- of structure inherently decreases the risk for the worker.
- That being said, many times we're not even putting a person
- up there because
- inspections-- I mean, that's obviously very expensive and risky.
- Uh, there's just not enough time and not enough people to do
- that for all of the
- assets that exist out there. So, uh, many inspections we've found in
- workflows- Operate on a time-based schedule.
- You go out there quarterly, daily, weekly, um, to look with
- your eyeballs, right? And you have some sort of expert,
- whether it's alignment, an
- engineer, who knows the components that they're looking at
- and who can look for,
- uh, damage and defects that occur.
- What we've found is that with the conditions that exist today,
- um, the usage of the equipment and the climate
- change and the increase of disasters that are happening, uh, and just the age
- of the infrastructure that's out there, um, it's just not getting inspected
- enough, and maintenance is increasingly reactive.
- Basically, when something goes down or something goes wrong,
- or there's a call, or
- the power is out, that's when you send somebody.
- But it would be great if you were able to get in front of that
- and be proactive
- and do preventative maintenance and detect those small problems before
- they become
- big problems. So what we found is, for example, with AEP,
- um, there's a really nice example of a
- transmission static line failure
- where the equipment specialist got a call in the middle of the night to go out to
- the substation because a transmission static line had failed.
- Uh, this caused a major outage. I think it ended up costing millions of
- dollars, uh, lots of overtime, lots of labor, lots of equipment
- replacement. And in the middle of that, he went out, and he threw one
- of our drones up in the air just to inspect the, the area, and he
- found that the adjacent static line had similar damage
- that was going to cause an imminent failure.
- So if you think about that scenario, that is not something, number one, in the
- face of a, an existing crisis, to be able to spare resources,
- uh, and equipment to go scale neighboring
- structures to,
- to check, right? That's not something that's very easily
- done, uh, in the
- face of a crisis. At the same time, being able to spot that,
- uh, helped them to do that repair and mitigate that damage
- before the very same failure would have happened again.
- So I think this is a really nice example because you can see, um,
- a direct comparison of one failure that happened
- where they were able to quantify what the cost was in terms
- of labor hours and dollars, um, of having that failure, but then you
- could directly translate that to a cost avoided
- by preventing the very same failure that would have happened in the same
- scenario.
- So I think that's one case study that's very exciting, um, and
- easy to quantify in terms of the value of proactive and preventative
- maintenance, uh, and having information that's really
- hidden in plain sight
- but not easily attainable by traditional methods.
- That's a great case study. All right, so I mean, one of the big challenges I
- think the industry is trying to address is moving from pilot to a full-scale
- deployment. So
- in your words, what's the biggest hurdle in
- that transition, and why do you think
- now is finally-- we're finally shifting, you know, towards that full deployment?
- Yeah. I think that, um, the biggest hurdle to change
- in general is nobody likes change.
- I think when you have an industry that's as critical as utilities, where
- failure is not an option, change can be a very scary thing.
- So there needs to be a very, uh, strong case for change, which I
- think there is at, in 2025 at this point in time.
- And I think utilities are in a place where, uh,
- grid modernization efforts
- have really progressed and data-driven decision-making has become
- a
- priority. So I think that the landscape, um, and the
- temperature has changed in recent years.
- But also, I think when we think about shifting towards, uh,
- full-scale deployment and having that kind of vision, the major thing
- is just
- that, uh, utilities are in need of some sort of workforce
- multiplier.
- I think at the end of the day, there is just too much work to do and not enough
- people to do it and not enough dollars to do it.
- Uh, and I think that when we're faced with that reality,
- it becomes obvious that something needs to be different in
- order to
- get more output with the same amount of input.
- And I think there are many factors for which, uh, this
- is the case, but,
- you know, I think when a lot of this equipment
- was set up 50, 60
- years ago, uh, 70 plus, it was really made for a different
- time, right? [chuckles] Like I think we've evolved
- quite a bit in, in
- a short amount of time in terms of going from gas-powered street
- lamps to electricity in every home to electric ve-- Uh, I mean,
- even for myself, we bought an electric vehicle.
- We installed a charger.
- Our electric bills went up, right?
- Clearly, our gas bills went down, but at the same time, the load that, uh,
- each individual home, uh, and business is,
- uh, requiring is higher than it was 50, 60 years ago.
- So the infrastructure that was created is just no longer sufficient, and I think
- utilities, we can see now that they're looking into other forms of
- generation
- and looking into increasing their ability to support that demand.
- Um, and in this, in the same light, I think we can see, just if we look in
- the news, we can see there's an increase in
- wildfires that are just popping
- up. There is an increase in storms and catastrophic storms that are
- causing a lot of damage to infrastructure.
- And I think every day we can-- Maybe not every day.
- Uh, every few weeks we can see that there's another community
- that has the power
- out, and the utility is really scrambling to restore
- that power.
- So I think given the criticality of the need for electricity, um,
- and the challenging landscape, uh, both internally and
- externally that utilities are facing, the case for change is really here, and I
- think that the desire for deployment and the desire to make those data d-driven
- decisions and justify priorities is really at a forefront.
- My understanding is that, you know, utilities are looking at basically
- going from a small drone program and the need to scale it
- up to size where it has a, you know, meaningful impact.
- Talk to us about, you know, what is it about the utility program
- that you think
- would be successful if it were to move in that direction of more of
- an
- enterprise-wide solution?
- Yeah. I think this is really timely for where a lot of
- utilities
- are now, and scaling an enterprise-wide solution,
- whether it's drones
- or an asset management software or, or literally rolling out
- iPads and tablets into your field, I think any sort of enterprise-wide
- solution sounds great but is in reality very, very challenging.
- As I said before, I think it really starts with identifying
- the pain points-
- Both at a high level for utility executives, such as reducing
- O&M, lowering risk, or maximizing performance, but also
- requires, um, that definition at the department level to
- really
- engage stakeholders across generation, transmission, distribution,
- or across maybe your different power plant sites, um, depending on how
- you're organized. But I think there needs to be, um,
- some sort
- of establishment of value across multiple use cases to work
- cross-functionally across the organization.
- So utilities, like any other major organization,
- have a tendency to be siloed, right?
- I think that's just a reality of any large organization.
- And that's where it becomes difficult to scale anything enterprise-wide, because I
- think that when you start in just one department with one initiative,
- it really ends up kind of starting and dying there, right?
- Or showing value in one small corner, where at the end of the day,
- the other side
- of your business might not even know that it exists.
- Um, and I think that's actually very common.
- So I think that to scale a program, it requires having
- extremely visionary leadership to see what an improved future state could look like
- for the entire organization, but then empowering the
- leaders in your organization to make the investments, adjustments, and
- plan in order to achieve it. So change, as we know, doesn't happen
- overnight, but I think that successful organizations
- are the ones that have a
- very, very thoughtful and intentional short, medium,
- and long-term plan
- of how they're going to adopt and ultimately, uh, be able
- to undergo that transformation.
- Yeah, I would agree. And there's even the possibility of,
- you know, the application
- of drones in ways we haven't even thought of yet.
- So I think there's a, there's a lot of room for growth there.
- So on that note, let me ask you the following:
- Where does AI and
- autonomy, you know, work into the, into the vernacular here with when we're
- discussing drones? How has, you know, advancements of these types of
- tools impacted the way that drones are thought about and, and being
- used in the field?
- Yeah. You know, AI has become such a buzzword in the last
- five, 10 years,
- and I think it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
- And I actually think there's an inherent risk towards gravitating towards the
- shiny object or the buzzword just to say, uh, we are using
- AI and, and we're seeing benefit out of it.
- I think it's really important to define and harness what you're giving
- over to the software or the machine, um, and where the
- human-in-the-loop role is, and I think that human is actually still
- very, very critical, especially for utilities.
- So if I give an example, I think we've all used ChatGPT in one form
- or another. One of the things that I found is that you can ask the
- same question, uh, to ChatGPT and get
- very, very different answers based on how you
- ask it, because the way that AI
- models have been trained. Um, and, and I've done this for models that we've
- actually trained and gotten very, like a very bad answer and a very good
- answer. So I think th- all this is to say that AI is a tool.
- It's another tool that the user should learn how to
- use effectively, uh, in order to take out some of the more
- mundane tasks that need to be done and enable them to
- actually do their job better. It's not necessarily there to take over,
- um, but I think in order to assist. So for example, if we talk
- about drones, uh, we at Skydio, we have AI built into our drones.
- Autonomy is something that our founders bet big on, uh,
- over 10 years
- ago when we were founded as really the future.
- So anybody can go to a Costco or a Walmart and buy a cheap drone off the
- shelf and, you know, probably get the battery charged
- and get it up in the air.
- But I think that when we think about enterprise solutions,
- it's actually really
- important to have an intelligent, uh, tool in your
- toolbox that you can use that can, as I said,
- remove some of the more mundane, tedious, or dangerous
- parts of your workflow, uh, and substitute it in order to free
- you up in order to use your expertise to do the actual
- parts of your job that are going to bring systems back online
- or to
- do repairs or to make assessments.
- So, so some of the features that you can see with AI in our drones
- that we've
- built in are in obstacle avoidance, the ability to land safely,
- modeling the path and understanding the safest way to return
- home.
- These are all things as the drone flies, it's really taking in the
- surroundings, understanding what is around it, what it
- should and should not fly into, right?
- So I could actually push forward and have it go straight into a tree,
- and the drone will recognize, "I have an obstacle in front of me.
- This is not safe.
- I am going to go around it or above it or under it, depending on what I
- see." And as I complete a mission and I do an inspection, um, when
- I hit return home, it's actually a way for me to reduce my
- cognitive load
- as the user to think about, "I need to make sure I don't crash into
- this.
- I need to ma-" especially around critical infrastructure like power lines, right?
- Um, but I can just hit a return home button
- and use my
- brain to do something else, uh, out in the field and know that the drone
- has mapped out its surroundings and it will find the safest way to
- get back. So I think this is where AI can be really valuable.
- Um, it really lowers the, uh, amount of energy and
- attention that a user has to use that
- normally they would not have to think about.
- If I was walking around, right, my brain thinks about what I'm
- looking at and makes sure that I don't walk into that tree.
- So the drone in the same way does the same thing.
- Yeah. It, I mean, it seems like a natural fit, right?
- If you're a utility and the, the drone technology, I mean,
- it kind of like makes
- sense. It's almost like a no-brainer in some
- respects.
- But Christina, you know, you're in the C-suite talking to the
- decision-makers. There's always gonna be, you know, um,
- late adopters or even those that are just hesitant to make the, the,
- the kind of
- investment that is necessary here, but even though it's makes sense, right?
- So what do you think is holding them back
- and how do you help them overcome,
- you know, this, this issue of inertia or hesitation that leads to inertia?
- Sure. Um, so I think that- Inertia is a really
- interesting concept. Uh, I, I think I,
- I really enjoyed science through high school and college.
- And when we think about inot- inertia, a body at rest wants to stay at rest.
- So getting it moving is, is a really difficult thing.
- The exciting thing is a body in motion wants to stay in
- motion.
- So I think once you can get over that activation energy and really
- get moving, the momentum, uh, and the benefits and the value
- really cascade and snowball, um, and it becomes much more easier.
- So when we think about, um, getting a program off the ground or
- making the decision to, to start one, it's understandable that
- an industry that's so critical and so established
- is just naturally risk-averse
- to change. Um, I think there's a lot of prevailing
- thought, "If it, if it's not
- broken, don't fix it. The power has been on for decades,
- and we'll
- continue to keep it on the way we've done it." But I think that when we look hard
- at the biggest ch- challenges that utilities are facing,
- there's really this moment
- in time today where it's just not possible to keep doing things the way they've
- always been done. And I think that if, if you do the analysis and you just
- look at the fact that times have changed, um, it's just a reality that
- they need to do more with less. So when we think about, as I said before,
- the fact
- that aging, that infrastructure is aging and probably aging faster, uh,
- due to
- the way that we're running our equipment.
- Um, and also when we look at the workforce,
- that the culture, I think, at
- least here in America, has really changed in the last 50 years.
- Even when I, when I came to NYPA at, in
- 2007, it was really the norm. Most of the, my coworkers
- had been there for 20, 30 years. The plan was to stay for the full
- 30-plus years of a career, retire, um, and it really takes
- kind of that amount of time to really understand how to run a
- utility. But I think that's just not, uh, maybe this is me showing my middle age,
- but [chuckles] that's just not the attitude of 22-year-olds
- that graduate from
- college now, right? The norm is to really, um, take a new
- opportunity every few years, uh, to expand your portfolio, to try
- different industries and things like that.
- So I think in the reality of that, we see that a lot of subject matter
- experts
- are retiring. A lot of the knowledge that has kept these power plants running
- and running well over the years may be out the door, uh, with
- retirement. And at the end of the day, that succession planning, uh, may
- be invested in somebody who is not inclined to stay for 30 years of
- their career.
- So it becomes increasingly important to capture that knowledge in
- the data that exists in people's heads, right?
- Because you won't be able to just make a phone call and say, "Hey, you know, what
- did we do 10 years ago on this?" Or, uh, what was not documented
- now needs to be documented. So I think that having digital tools like
- drones, uh, in order to capture and document and save that data and
- really pass it on and spread it to different stakeholders
- becomes
- really, really critical.
- Yeah, I would agree. I, I think that's, that's very, very important to think about
- when utilities are making these kinds of investments, and it's really preparing for
- the future, you know, workforce. And if they come in with, um,
- using tools of yesteryear, th- you're just gonna have a problem
- attracting, you
- know, the next generation of leaders at
- utilities.
- So those are, those are good points.
- So how about this, um, with the AI autonomy and the
- drone technology and the ever-evolving needs of the utility, what
- has got you excited about, you know, drones or the drone
- program? What do you see, you know, five, 10 years out in this
- space that we should all, uh, looking at as a North Star?
- I wanna say five, 10 years, but it is really starting now.
- It's the future of remote operations.
- So I think when everyone thinks about drones, they think about someone with a
- controller standing there looking up at the sky, and the drone is up in the air
- inspecting whatever it needs to inspect, and I think that is
- exciting. And some utilities are trying to get from traditional to
- hand-flown. But I think with what we call Dock and
- remote operations, there is the ability to have the drone live out
- there in your remote substation that is eight hours of a drive away,
- right? Or to have it live out there in, uh, rough
- terrain where it is going to be dangerous, particularly in certain times
- of the year, to send people out, uh, in, in order to
- conduct some of these inspections, right?
- So when we think about putting a drone in a box, uh, or we- we- what we
- call Dock, um, out in a location and then being able to deploy
- that from anywhere in the world, there are so many possibilities, right?
- Like you can have a central digital monitoring, uh,
- facility where you have an engineer or multiple engineers
- deploying many drones at the same time in many different facilities.
- So when I look at many of the utilities that are out there, um, New
- York Power Authority, we obviously serve the state of New York.
- Well, the state of New York is not small, right?
- From, from Buffalo over in Western New York down
- to headquarters in White Plains,
- uh, that, that's still a nine-hour drive, right?
- But I think that when I look at AEP, when I look at Southern Company and,
- and many
- of these other utilities, their footprints are quite large.
- They cross multiple states. Um, I think even Southern California Edison,
- they have to serve Catalina Island.
- So in order to go and, uh, serve some of the parts of their
- communities, you have to get on a ferry, you have to get on a helicopter.
- These are things that are very expensive, time-consuming, um, and take a lot of
- man-hours. So I think what's really exciting
- is the ability to
- strategically place these drones out there so that a human doesn't have to
- take the time, the energy, or assume the risk in order to go out
- there themselves. And I think that there are many advancements with the
- FAA in
- terms of what you're able to do beyond visual line of sight, or BVLOS as we
- call it, and that's something that we at Skydio, as we deploy and
- create our Dock solutions, uh, that is also something in-house that we
- realize it do- it doesn't matter if you have a great piece of technology
- if you're
- not allowed to use it. So, uh, we've been doing a lot of work
- and seeing a lot of
- progress with attaining these waivers, particularly for critical
- industries like utilities, so that you can use them for your,
- uh, substations, your areas outside of substations, and not
- need to have a person there.
- Christina, you mentioned remote operations. Uh,
- can you talk a bit more about that?
- And where can our listeners learn more about this topic?
- Yeah, that's a great question, Jason.
- Um, our live remote virtual demo is actually here now
- operational, and we'd love to give you a demo
- and have you flying from
- wherever you are. So if you live in New York like myself,
- you could be
- flying from your computer, uh, and launch a drone off of our rooftop in
- San Mateo, California. And it's pretty exciting to see how you
- can, uh,
- view this in real time and also use what we call Ready Link.
- There's a QR code that we can have you scan so anyone in
- your organization
- can see you fly, even if they're not sitting right next to you.
- If you'd like to have a demo, uh, please come to our website, skydio.com.
- That's S-K-Y-D-I-O.com, and contact us, and
- we'd love to set up a demo for you.
- So Christina, we're gonna give you the final word, um,
- but we are
- now shifting towards what we call the lightning round, which gives us an
- opportunity to learn a little bit more about you, the person, rather than you,
- the
- professional. So I'm gonna throw a set of questions at
- you.
- We ask you to keep your an- Answer to, you know, a short answer, one word or
- phrase or, or a, a short sentence. So are you
- ready?
- Sure.
- All right. What would be your superpower of choice?
- So this is a little bit situational because I'm just recovering from a full
- Achilles rupture, but it would definitely be the power of
- healing.
- [laughs]
- Your dream vacation destination.
- I've been here once before. I always said that we would go back, uh,
- for some
- anniversary someday, but, uh, Tahiti.
- Best use of a drone outside of your career.
- Well, I love taking pictures, and I will say that the drone is probably
- the best selfie stick that you'll ever have.
- [laughs]
- This one's a little tricky 'cause we're asking one word, but what's one word that
- sums up the future of energy?
- Uh, if I had to choose one word, I would say evolving.
- Um, all right. So we also collect lightning round
- questions from
- past podcast guests. So this one is from Amy Myers
- Jaffe. She left the following question for you to
- answer,
- and that is, "What would you tell your 22-year-old self
- about building a career in energy?"
- I would say that much like parenting, uh, the
- days are long, but the years are short.
- So I think for me when I started my career, it
- was very daunting
- to say, "I'm starting on a 10-year life extension
- and monetization project, and I'm gonna start as an engineer, and 10
- years later I'm gonna be the lead, uh, who's running it." And it's
- something I couldn't have imagined, or I couldn't have imagined staying
- somewhere
- for 10 years plus. But I think that it's something that, uh,
- it creeps up on you how, how
- long it takes to really understand.
- But when you do understand the industry, um, and how the power is
- made and, and some of those complex problems,
- it's actually very rich.
- Um, and you feel like you are a part of something,
- that you're delivering something
- that's very important, uh, and critical to the nation.
- Uh, every industry needs it. Every home needs it.
- Um, but I think that in the day-to-day
- when you're running around,
- uh, it can be very stressful [laughs] and just seem like you're putting out fire
- after fire after fire, or in my case, leak after leak after leak.
- Um, but in hindsight it was well worth it, and I feel like,
- uh, all of those years and those projects
- and those crises really built
- up into a very niche market of expertise,
- which, uh, I'm very proud to have now.
- And, and it's, it's very exciting to work with people who
- are here to really
- deliver, um, a critical function to society.
- All right, so now it's your turn. We're gonna a-
- you can ask a question to a future
- guest, so your, your name will be mentioned in a future
- show.
- And the question can be related to energy or an off-the-wall question.
- This may be showing where I am in my parenting
- today, but who is your favorite Disney hero
- and why?
- That's an excellent question. Considering that I have three children
- under the age
- of 10, I, I, um, I can probably name off more Disney
- princesses than I, than I would be willing to admit.
- But great question.
- Looking forward to [laughs] the response for that one.
- We'll need to be strategic on who to ask that to.
- Maybe a future, uh, maybe a CEO of a utility would be
- interested to
- see here. All right. Well, fantastic. Thank you.
- Did a great job navigating the lightning round.
- And as I promised, uh, you would get the final word.
- So knowing that you've got utility decision-makers listening in, what are,
- you
- know, some key steps you would advise that they consider,
- um, as they build a pathway towards, you know, incorporating or
- operationalizing drones in their business?
- So where should they start, and, uh, just what are your thoughts around that?
- I think you should always start by defining the problem that you wanna solve.
- So sitting down with your key stakeholders and saying, "What
- are your biggest pain points, and what does success look like to you?
- What is the outcome that you want to achieve?" I think
- that once those are really
- defined and also aligned across your key stakeholders,
- then I think that's where the solution comes in.
- So I think that's been my experience in terms of seeing success or
- failure, um, in new initiatives. And then I think it's a
- question of, what do you do in order to achieve them?
- How are you going to measure success?
- Uh, and really understanding how to make a
- short, medium, and
- long-term plan. Um, I, I think that it's very easy to
- see in the short term, I want to purchase something, put it
- up in the air, uh, and hope that I see results.
- But I think understanding what results you wanna see beforehand is
- really, really important.
- Very nice. Nicely stated. And much appreciate your insight today.
- And I, I implore our Energy Central listeners to,
- you know,
- share their questions and comments on the platform.
- And if any come through, we will, uh, send them your way, Christina,
- so you could
- keep the conversation going. But until then,
- wanna thank you for sharing
- us your insight on today's podcast.
- Yeah, thanks for having me. This was really fun.
- Awesome. And you can always reach Christina through
- the Energy Central platform
- where she welcomes your questions and comments.
- And we also wanna give a shout-out of thanks to the podcast sponsors that
- made today's episode possible. Thanks to Skydio.
- Skydio helps utilities move beyond outdated time-based
- maintenance to smarter, safer, and more scalable
- condition-based maintenance, powered by autonomous remote-operated
- drones. Over 280 utilities trust Skydio
- because with real-time aerial data and remote inspection,
- utilities can spot issues early, reduce forced
- outages, and make confident, efficient, cost-effective
- decisions. Once again, I'm your host Jason Price.
- Plug in and stay fully charged in the discussion by hopping into the community
- at
- energycentral.com. And we'll see you next time at Energy
- Central's
- Power Perspectives podcast.
- [outro music]
Watch Time
31 Mins 3 Secs
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