AES has partnered with “Drones-as-a-Service” (DaaS) operator Measure, to use drones to monitor its electricity assets, in a move that is poised to see wide industry adoption. AES Corp provides power in 17 countries, including ownership of two regulated utilities in the US, as well as generation facilitates and hundreds of megawatts of utility-scale storage. Monitoring and maintaining the electricity transmission network is one of the largest headaches that utilities have to deal with. In the US, there are around 6m miles of distribution and transmission lines. Running and maintaining those lines cost utilities $14bn in 2015, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Manually checking the condition of energy assets like powerlines can be an incredibly dangerous task for…