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As part of a resilience plan to bolster the power system following extreme weather impacts on the power grid, Ireland’s ESB selected Cyberhawk to perform critical inspections across its transmission and distribution network.
Cyberhawk was selected under a five-year agreement to support Electricity Supply Board’s (ESB’s) Winter Resilience Programme.
The programme, launched in April in response to the widespread damage caused by severe storms such as storms Darragh and Éowyn, is now making use of scalable drone operations combined with Cyberhawk’s proprietary iHawk cloud-based platform.
According to Cyberhawk in a release, while past efforts focused on high-voltage transmission infrastructure, the collaboration with ESB Networks expanded to distribution networks following severe damage caused by back-to-back storms Darragh and Eowyn.
These storms, in December 2024 and January 2025 respectively, resulted in power outages impacting more than 700,000 homes, businesses, and farms throughout Ireland, as well as significant damage to civil infrastructure.
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Under the partnership, Cyberhawk deployed drone teams across more than 180km of ESB’s distribution network, specifically around over 1,000 highly dense forested sections. Using iHawk, says the company, ESB was able to visualise and catalogue storm damage, including fallen trees and damaged assets, enabling rapid debris clearance and targeted maintenance planning.
The platform also provided valuable reporting for vegetation encroachment issues, supporting proactive management strategies to strengthen resilience ahead of future storms.
Commenting in a release was Elaine Hannan, overhead lines asset manager, ESB Networks: “Speed and scale were critical in our response to the storm damage.
“Cyberhawk’s combination of expert field operations and its iHawk platform allowed us to quickly understand the condition of our network.”
According to Hannance, iHawk provided a new level of network visibility and remote situational awareness for the utility, “and helped bridge the gap between data collection, decision-making, and action, delivering immediate value to our teams.
“We look forward to exploring further use cases for this approach to proactively address potential problems and speed response times during future weather events.”
Said Patrick Saracco, Cyberhawk’s senior vice president EMEA: “This programme demonstrates the power of combining aerial intelligence with actionable analytics, and we’re honoured to play a role in helping strengthen the resilience of Ireland’s energy infrastructure against extreme weather events.”
