Infravision, a company focusing on power grid modernization with drone-enabled power line upgrades, has raised $23 million in Series A financing led by Energy Impact Partners (EIP) and utilities like Equinor Ventures and Edison International to expand its proprietary field robotics powerline stringing system and intelligent grid monitoring solutions to utilities and contractors in North America and globally.
Infravision also plans to invest in current and prospective employees and increase operations in North America to enable a clean, secure energy future.
Infravision’s TX System, a drone hardware and software technology system, offers the power of a helicopter in a complete ground and aerial robotics system to minimize risk and environmental impact and offer new benefits to the industry including project schedule compression and rapid emergency response deployment in severe weather conditions.
The system is modernizing the transmission buildout of power lines by providing technology and services for energy network operators and contractors responsible for building, maintaining and repairing this critical infrastructure.
“This funding will enable Infravision to invest in the people, products and projects required to establish decarbonization as the industry standard for electric utilities and their construction partners on a global scale,” said Van Der Berg, CEO of Infravision. “It is estimated that 10 million miles of new power lines are required by 2030 to reach net-zero targets, which is roughly equivalent to building the entire U.S. and Canadian power grids again, which took us a century, in seven years.”
“Currently it can take more than a decade to build a new transmission line, so the pace of expansion must increase quickly for California to meet the goal of 100% net zero carbon emission by 2045,” said Sergej Mahnovski, Managing Director of Strategy, Technology and Innovation at Edison International. “Infravision’s drone solutions offer safe, fast, affordable ways to accelerate the huge transmission buildout we need, so we’re proud to support Infravision and their transformational technology that will help decarbonize the grid.”
Infravision’s TX System served Pacific Gas and Electric Company to conduct energized power line stringing over urban areas north of San Francisco more efficiently as compared to traditional means during the 2023 storm season. In some cases power line upgrades and projects can be completed in seven months with Infravision’s technology.
“Transmission remains the fundamental constraint to decarbonizing the grid and unlocking the net-zero economy. By most estimates, we need to 10x the pace of new transmission buildout over the next decade,” said Sameer Reddy, Managing Partner at EIP.
