May 2025 – Fingrid, Finland’s transmission system operator, has launched a strategic initiative to enhance grid maintenance in collaboration with eSmart Systems, a leader in critical grid asset management solutions. The project focuses on the conditional analysis of Fingrid’s Extra High Voltage (EHV) portfolio, leveraging advanced aerial data capture and virtual inspections using GridVision® software to improve grid reliability, safety, and sustainability.
Modernizing data capture and virtual inspections
As part of this initiative, Fingrid partnered with eSmart Systems and Airpelago. The project utilized automated flight patterns to capture data across 400 kV towers and spans along three powerlines. This approach introduced virtual inspections, significantly reducing the need for physical fieldwork and planned outages.
The captured data is processed in Grid Vision®, enabling Fingrid’s maintenance service providers to conduct comprehensive inspections more efficiently and with less reliance on on-site visits. Grid Vision® delivers a complete overview of each transmission tower’s condition, supporting proactive maintenance decisions and strengthening Fingrid’s overall asset management strategy. By digitalizing inspections, Fingrid is achieving improved data accuracy, new asset insights, enhanced safety, and high-quality decision-making data.
Our commitment to adopting innovative technologies allows us to enhance the security of supply while adhering to stringent safety and sustainability objectives. By integrating automated data capture with the competence of our maintenance personnel, we gain a clearer picture of our grid’s condition, enabling proactive interventions that improve operational efficiency, safety, and reliability.
Fingrid’s vision for a sustainable grid
Fingrid continues to pursue technological advancements that support effective, data-driven grid maintenance. With the increasing complexity of energy transmission and rising sustainability expectations, the company remains committed to securing Finland’s energy supply while promoting a clean, market-based power system.
As Finland’s national transmission system operator, Fingrid plays a vital role in balancing electricity production and consumption. Through its extensive network, the company ensures the seamless flow of electricity across borders, connecting Finland to the Nordic and Central European power systems.
This project underscores Fingrid’s forward-thinking approach to grid management and reinforces its mission to provide uninterrupted electricity access, improve inspection safety, and accelerate digitalization in support of a more resilient and sustainable energy infrastructure.
We are proud to support Fingrid’s digitalization program. Our Grid Vision® solution aligns with their strategic goals for grid development and sustainability, while enabling service providers to conduct inspections more safely. The asset data within Grid Vision® will support preventive maintenance and asset management strategies to deliver clean, affordable, and reliable power to their customers.
About Fingrid
Fingrid Oyj is Finland’s transmission system operator, owned by the Finnish state and pension insurance companies. The company ensures a stable and secure electricity supply across the nation, transmitting electricity through the high-voltage network from production facilities to industrial consumers and electricity companies. As part of the joint Nordic power system, Fingrid plays a vital role in maintaining energy security and enabling cross-border electricity trade, ensuring a reliable and efficient power market.
About eSmart Systems
Smart Systems is a leading provider of AI-powered solutions for the inspection and maintenance of critical infrastructure. Through our software solution, GridVision®, we revolutionize how utility companies operate and maintain their transmission and distribution grids. We support utilities worldwide in reducing inspection costs, making inspections safer, improving asset data quality, and prolonging asset life by providing an image-based digital inventory representing all physical grid assets. eSmart Systems has more than 20 years of international experience in establishing and operating knowledge-based IT and energy-related companies targeting global markets.
AI is no longer a distant promise for utilities. It’s already helping grid operators streamline inspections, identify defects, and generate insights from asset data. These use cases offer real value, but common AI misconceptions often lead to AI being applied too narrowly and evaluated in isolation, without thinking through the larger system it needs to serve. An IEEE report states that up to 80% of AI projects fail to deliver value, and 87% never make it into production¹. Many of these failures are tied to insufficient, siloed, or ungoverned data, these don’t get fix by only focusing on better AI models.
That’s where progress can slow down. When AI is seen as the main objective rather than a component of a broader strategy, utilities can risk investing in tools that don’t scale, models built on poor-quality data, and insights that never reach frontline operations.
This article unpacks some of the most common AI misconceptions for utilities, and shows how shifting the mindset toward developing grid-wide intelligence vs just putting a magnifying glass on AI, can drive real, operational outcomes.
Once the POC works, are we ready to scale?
Most utilities start their AI journey with a proof of concept (POC). Pilot projects often succeed because they’re run in a bubble with controlled data, clear goals, and limited variability.
In the real world, scaling means not just the AI models, but the entire system: data quality, validation loops, human workflows, and the people. POCs don’t prove readiness, they prove potential. That’s an important difference.
That’s why it’s critical to partner with a team with proven operational experience at scale, because scaling requires more than good AI. It demands a holistic understanding of data, utility operations, and what it takes to make innovative technology work under real operational pressures and changing conditions.
Does more data mean better AI results?
Utilities sit on mountains of asset data, but volume isn’t the issue. Enough data is key, but quality matters far more than quantity. According to a study, 70% of AI projects fail to meet their goals in large part due to issues with data quality². To succeed, you want to know exactly what data you’re working with, how it’s been used, and whether it’s reliable. That requires version control, structured datasets, and a clear distinction between training, testing, and validation sets.
We have proven that in practice, more data isn’t always better. At eSmart Systems, we have reduced certain datasets from 500,000 to 100,000 images and achieved better outcomes by focusing on quality over quantity. By removing noise, correcting labels, and structuring data more effectively, the team achieved more accurate and explainable results. Uplifting data quality led to stronger model performance and greater trust in the results.
Should AI be the main goal?
AI isn’t the goal, better decisions are. High model accuracy means little if it doesn’t improve how you manage risk, respond to outages, or plan investments.
The real shift happens when utilities stop implementing AI as the destination and instead focus on building grid intelligence – structured, connected data that powers the entire operation. Inspections can be a key part of this shift, by capturing consistent, high-quality asset data that feeds a central digital model of the grid. With a central digital asset, operational teams can identify defects and inventory gaps in one platform, while planners prioritize investments based on condition, not assumptions. It also enables faster responses to weather events and ensures regulatory reports are grounded in real inspection data and not estimates.
Some major utilities (read more here) have made that leap, turning inspection programs into digital asset platforms that now drive maintenance, capital planning, and regulatory reporting.
Why look at the bigger picture?
Utilities face unprecedented challenges: load growth, renewable integration, aging infrastructure, and extreme weather. The old model: manual inspections, disconnected data, reactive maintenance – can’t keep up.
Grid intelligence platforms powered by AI, like Grid Vision, don’t just modernize inspections. They turn inspections into structured intelligence that supports every layer of grid operations. With visibility of asset condition down to component level, grid operators can act before problems escalate, avoiding outages, extending asset life, and allocating resources where they matter most. Focus on decisions, not just AI hype. Treat data as a strategic asset, not a byproduct. Building the intelligence layer your grid needs means investing in technology and processes that support risk mitigation at scale. AI plays a role, but shouldn’t be the only goal. Operational value is unlocked when data, insight, and action come together to drive smarter decisions for a stronger, more resilient grid.
Want to chat with our team about AI for utilities? Fill this form here
Source¹: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/10572277/metrics#metrics Source²: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/a-data-leaders-technical-guide-to-scaling-gen-ai?
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.
We’ll be presenting with Alectra at CEATI T&D!
We are pleased to announce that eSmart Systems will be participating in the upcoming Transmission & Distribution Conference organized by CEATI. We are looking forward to connecting with customers and partners.
We are particularly excited to share that we will be delivering a presentation in collaboration with Alectra, showcasing our joint project. Additionally, we invite attendees to visit our booth #104, where they can learn more about our cutting-edge inspection solutions and discuss how eSmart Systems can support their specific needs.
Contact us if you would like to book a demo at the event.