ESB Partners with Cyberhawk to Enhance Grid Resilience After Major Storms

Cyberhawk, a company specializing in drone-based asset inspection and visual data management, supported the Electricity Supply Board’s (ESB) Winter Resilience Program in Ireland. The initiative was launched in response to widespread damage caused by severe storms.

ESB, Ireland’s national electrical utility, entered into a five-year agreement with Cyberhawk to conduct inspections across its transmission and distribution network. While previous efforts focused on high-voltage transmission infrastructure, the collaboration expanded to distribution networks after damage caused by storms Darragh and Eowyn in December 2024 and January 2025. These storms resulted in power outages affecting more than 700,000 homes, businesses, and farms in Ireland, along with damage to civil infrastructure.

Within days, Cyberhawk deployed drone teams across more than 180 km (112 miles) of ESB’s distribution network, including over 1,000 dense forested sections. Using Cyberhawk’s iHawk cloud-based platform, ESB was able to catalogue storm damage such as fallen trees and damaged assets. This supported debris clearance and maintenance planning, while also identifying vegetation encroachment issues for proactive management.

ESB’s Winter Resilience Program is part of its broader efforts to improve sustainability, safety, and reliability for its two million customers. “ESB’s openness to innovation and collaboration enabled us to deliver real, measurable benefits,” said Patrick Saracco, Cyberhawk’s Senior Vice President EMEA. “This program demonstrates the power of combining aerial intelligence with actionable analytics, and we’re honored to play a role in helping strengthen the resilience of Ireland’s energy infrastructure against extreme weather events.”