Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority / LUMA Energy PREPA Transmission Lines 100, 200, & 1100

Hurricanes Irma and Maria struck Puerto Rico in September 2017, knocking out power to the island’s 3.3 million residents, damaging critical infrastructure, and causing catastrophic damage of historical proportion. The combined impact of the two hurricanes led to a complete failure of Puerto Rico’s power grid, with power not fully restored for nearly 11 months and significant portions of the generation, transmission, and distribution systems needing to be rebuilt. Many of PREPA’s transmission lines damaged during the storms were constructed decades before and were in difficult-to-access areas. The failure of the power grid led to the privatization of the distribution and transmission system, and later earthquakes and storms have taken a toll as well.

In collaboration with a partner, GPI Geospatial provided PREPA/LUMA with a comprehensive preliminary engineering package, outlining the Statement of Work (SOW) for the reconstruction of Transmission Lines 100, 200, & 1100 in the southern coastal and central areas of Puerto Rico. GPI Geospatial delivered an extensive range of geospatial services, including the acquisition of aerial imagery and LiDAR, as well as oblique and HD forward-looking video collection for each transmission tower. The services further involved analytical triangulation, orthophotography, compilation, and PLS-CADD Feature Codes and DTM processing, adhering to the LiDAR specifications provided by the client for transmission lines. To capture crucial weather and atmospheric conditions, weather stations were strategically deployed at 15-mile intervals during the acquisition. Planimetric features collected encompassed various elements such as the circuit transmission centerline, right of way, coordinates, and deflection of each Point of Intersection (PI), streets, roads, highway centerlines and the edge of unpaved roads, trails, driveways, centerlines, and the base of poles for utilities within the corridor, fences, structures, banks, centerlines of hydrography, and areas of forestation. A meticulous QA/QC process was implemented to ensure the integrity of the acquired data.