Co-authored by Bill Meehan and Tom Lenzen
Transmission owners and operators face one of the most demanding periods in history. Much of the grid was built decades ago and now strains under rapid electrification, renewable energy integration, and new large-scale loads. The U.S. Department of Energy projects the grid will need to double or even triple its capacity by 2050. Despite worsening weather, new security risks, and complex regulations, this growth must happen while keeping the lights on daily.
A Geographic Information System, or GIS, is the foundation for information, intelligence, and analytics in one spatial platform. It connects seamlessly with modern data collection from smart devices, sensors, and drones, reducing the time needed to identify and evaluate conditions. Field crews collect standard, thermal, or hyperspectral imagery from drones and aircraft. They also use lidar, underground locators, and thermal sensors to measure heat around conductors or equipment. These tools create a flood of new data that GIS can organize and interpret.
GIS helps transmission owners and operators fully use these new data sources. It lets them see networks in the context of land, communities, and regulations. With this view, they can plan, operate efficiently, respond quickly, and adapt with resilience.
Several electric transmission stories will be included in this article.
Transmission owners and operators rely heavily on mobile GIS.
From routine maintenance to major expansion, GIS guides the grid in these four ways:
Manage the Infrastructure
Manage the Growth
Manage Reliability and Resilience
Manage the Right of Way
Manage the Infrastructure - Running the Business
Operating a transmission system requires constant visibility into its condition. GIS integrates with EMS/SCADA feeds, IoT sensors, and drone imagery in control centers to provide a near-real-time grid picture. Historical outage reports are also layered onto the map. With this view, operators can see where faults occur, assess their impact, and dispatch crews with accurate information on access routes and hazards.
Asset managers use GIS to maintain a mapped inventory of every line, tower, and substation, linking each to inspection records, maintenance schedules, and condition reports. Inspections increasingly rely on images and lidar data, which GIS organizes into clear workflows. This supports regulatory compliance, capital planning, and operational decisions. What once relied on 2D records is moving quickly into 3D digital as-builts, which allow teams to visualize and interact with assets and right-of-way conditions in detail.
This supports regulatory compliance and operational decision-making.
GIS also plays a critical role in emergencies. During storms, wildfires, or floods, it provides real-time maps showing damage, guiding crew deployments, and sharing updates across the organization. Field teams use mobile GIS apps to access the latest data and upload observations from photos, thermal scans, drone capture for 3D image mesh, or lidar. This direct connection with the operations center shortens outages and improves safety.
One powerful example comes from Great River Energy (GRE), a not-for-profit generation and transmission electric cooperative serving Minnesota and parts of the Midwest, providing reliable and affordable energy to more than 700,000 people. For years, locating faults meant manually measuring distances on maps based on relay data. GRE’s GIS team built a clever mapping tool that pulls relay data from the EMS historian, calculates precise fault locations, and automatically plots them on the network map.
Lightning strike data helps confirm probable causes. Mobile workers receive the coordinates through ArcGIS Field Maps and navigate directly to the site. The result is faster, more accurate restoration and reduced outage times. Read the complete story.
GRE’s automatic fault location tool directs crews to the location of the damaged equipment.
“Leveraging GIS’s many capabilities, we were able to automate multiple processes, including capturing data directly from the EMS historian, providing precise fault locations, and correlating lightning data. The GIS application enabled rapid decision making.” — Mark Peterson, Director of System Operations at GRE.
In Florida, Lakeland Electric faced repeated disruptions from hurricanes and tropical storms. Their challenge wasn’t just restoring service but doing so in a way that met rising expectations for speed and transparency. By deploying GIS-based outage management and field data collection, they captured storm damage information in real time, assigned repair crews more effectively, and communicated restoration progress to local leaders. Read the complete story.
In Oman, the Oman Electricity Transmission Company (OETC) modernized its asset management practices by implementing a centralized GIS platform. This replaced fragmented records with a single, accurate view of the network, integrating real-time inspections and maintenance activities. Read the complete story.
“By implementing effective governance processes, organizations can ensure that their GIS data is an asset rather than a liability.” - Rahma Saleh Al Balushi, GIS Specialist, OETC.
Manage Growth – Expand the Business
Expanding the transmission grid is more than adding new lines. Each project must be placed strategically, meet environmental standards, and remain cost-effective. GIS helps planners combine load forecasts, interconnection requests, capacity data, and land use into interactive models. With these tools, they can spot congestion, test future demand scenarios, and evaluate possible routes against terrain, wetlands, habitats, and cultural sites.
Engineers then refine routes using high-resolution imagery, lidar terrain models, land use data, and environmental overlays. They cross-reference this information with existing rights-of-way to see if new lines can be aligned with current corridors. All of this is done in GIS, which brings permitting rules, land use limits, and environmental data into the process from the start. This integration helps streamline approvals and reduce costly redesigns.
In India, Sterlite Power needed to build lines across difficult terrain while reducing environmental and social impacts. Using ArcGIS, the company tested multiple routing options considering land use, population density, and ecological sensitivity. This GIS-driven approach shortened routes, lowered costs, and avoided sensitive areas. Read the complete story:
California-based consulting firm Dudek has also leveraged GIS for growth projects, integrating drones and high-resolution imagery to conduct georeferenced land surveys. This approach delivered precise terrain models in a fraction of the time and cost of traditional surveys, providing engineers with accurate data early in the design process and accelerating project delivery. Read the complete story.
A drone captures aerial data while a surveyor in a boom lift ensures optimal positioning for comprehensive site analysis.
As we continue to move into the future, automation and 2D as-built digital twins have become the normal way of doing business, with 3D already showing up for more complex, critical equipment and structures like substations and transmission. This 2D workflow has provided a more holistic approach in Dubai. The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority implemented ArcGIS Utility Network to create a digital twin of its infrastructure, enhancing asset visibility, planning accuracy, and operational efficiency. This initiative supports Dubai’s broader smart city vision, ensuring that expansion aligns with immediate needs and long-term development plans. Read the complete story.
In the U.S., one transmission owner used GIS to manage a large grid modernization program across many construction sites. A single project map showed right-of-way boundaries, delivery schedules, and permitting milestones. Linked to progress reports and compliance data, this system kept projects on schedule and reduced delays from miscommunication. It also streamlined contractor invoicing and made demonstrating compliance with environmental and safety rules easier.
Manage Reliability and Resilience – Protect the Business
Reliability and resilience are more important than ever. GIS strengthens the grid by combining hazard models, historical event data, and asset condition records to reveal vulnerabilities and guide investments.
Avista Utilities in the Pacific Northwest used GIS to enhance its wildfire mitigation strategy. Avista identified priority areas for trimming and hazard tree removal by mapping fire-prone zones and overlaying vegetation data. Read the complete story.
“Using the ArcGIS system and development tools, we’ve quantified both our short and long-term risks of fire ignition. We’ve used these models to convey that risk to customers, regulators, fire authorities, and employees.” - David James, Wildfire Resiliency Manager, Avista Utilities.
Ameren, a major U.S. transmission owner, leveraged GIS as a network model manager to unify spatial data, engineering designs, and operational systems into a single source of truth. This has improved the accuracy and consistency of transmission network models, enabling better planning, faster operational decision-making, and stronger compliance performance. Read the complete story.
“Ameren’s overall electric transmission GIS infrastructure has never been in a better place. We have the best practices on hardware and software deployments, and now, we’re using the newest versions of what Esri has to offer.” - Mark Nordheim, Senior Software Engineer at Ameren.
Securing the Right-of-Way
Rights-of-way form the backbone of transmission infrastructure. GIS helps manage easements, property records, wetlands, and clearance requirements. By combining lidar, aerial imagery, and inspection data, vegetation management programs can predict risks and prioritize trimming or hazard tree removal. GIS also detects encroachments, making it easier to stop unauthorized development before it threatens reliability or safety.
Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association improved inspection efficiency by deploying GIS to centralize asset data, integrate inspection workflows, and provide mobile access to crews. Read the complete story.
“The ability to visualize easement locations and boundaries spatially in GIS and to link directly from those polygons to the associated land records improves research efficiency and accuracy, reduces response times, and helps us to better support the departments who rely on us.”-Steve Gray, Senior Manager Land Rights and Permitting at Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association, Inc.
Transpower manages more than 11,000 kilometers of transmission lines in New Zealand across steep mountains, remote forests, and wide plains. Traditional inspections were slow, costly, and reactive. By adopting ArcGIS with lidar and high-resolution imagery, Transpower built a nationwide, accurate view of vegetation growth and clearance risks. The system highlights encroachment before it becomes problematic, allowing crews to prioritize trimming, plan safe access routes, and coordinate with service providers. This proactive approach has reduced costs, improved safety, and strengthened reliability. Read the complete story.
“Prior to our implementation, we had limited visibility into the vegetation risks across the transmission network. This improved process using lidar is enabling Transpower to forward plan the work and provide an easy-to-use GIS tool for our service providers and staff.” - Mathy Dornan, GIS Manager, Transpower.
ArcGIS Dashboards illustrate areas of vegetation risk to the transmission network.
GIS as a System of Systems
Transmission owners and operators work across four core technology domains: bulk market, operations, engineering, and information technologies. These systems often run in silos, but GIS brings them together.
In bulk market operations, GIS maps generation sources, load centers, and congestion to help optimize dispatch and ensure transparency. In operations technology, it connects with EMS and SCADA for a real-time view of grid conditions. In engineering technology, GIS links studies and models to actual asset locations, improving design accuracy. In information technology, GIS connects asset data to financial systems, making budgeting, cost tracking, and regulatory reporting more precise.
The Digital Twin Advantage
GIS makes it possible to build a digital twin of the transmission network. With ArcGIS Utility Network, every line, tower, substation, and underground circuit can be modeled in 2D and 3D, along with its connections to surrounding infrastructure and the environment.
This model gives planners a way to visualize complexity, operators a way to see real-time conditions, and field crews access to current data on site. Mobile integration keeps everyone—from control centers to crews—working with the same information. GIS also organizes large volumes of data collected by sensors and drones, making them useful across the operation.
During crises, the digital twin provides a foundation for coordinated response. Operators can prioritize restoration by customer impact, damage severity, critical facility needs, or grid stability. Daily work supports maintenance, construction planning, and investment decisions.
The digital twin provides the foundation for rapid, coordinated response during crises. Operators can prioritize restoration based on customer impact, significance of damage, critical facility needs, or grid stability, based on the comprehensive analysis and visualization provided by GIS. It guides maintenance, construction planning, and investment prioritization in day-to-day operations.
Mapping Action
GIS does more than show where assets are. It shows how to act. By turning spatial data into operational intelligence, GIS guides decisions that improve reliability, efficiency, safety, and cost.
Case studies illustrate this impact. Great River Energy’s precision fault-location system shows how GIS speeds restoration. Sterlite Power demonstrates how GIS avoids environmental conflicts in planning. Lakeland Electric and OETC show how GIS improves storm readiness and asset management. Transpower highlights how imagery and LiDAR guide proactive vegetation management
GIS also provides the documentation and analysis needed for compliance with Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) orders and rules, including Order 1920 (transmission planning reform), Order 2023 (generator interconnection), and Order 881 (ambient-adjusted line ratings).
By integrating these compliance frameworks directly into GIS workflows, organizations can more easily track requirements, generate evidence for audits, and ensure that reliability and security mandates are met without disrupting day-to-day operations.
Across operations, growth, resilience, and protection, GIS is more than a technology—it is the strategic framework that helps transmission owners and operators navigate today’s challenges and prepare for tomorrow’s demands. In an era of rapid change, evolution to 3D digital twins, and the wide spectrum of data being captured, GIS will remain central to guiding the grid, ensuring it is ready for the future while delivering safe, reliable power today.
GIS Guides the Grid: Galvanizing Innovations
Across operations, growth, resilience, and right-of-way protection, GIS is more than a tool. It is a framework that helps transmission owners and operators handle today’s challenges while preparing for tomorrow. As 3D digital twins expand and data collection grows, GIS will remain central to guiding the grid—delivering safe and reliable power today and in the future.
The same pressures reshaping the grid—electrification, renewable integration, new large loads, and the demand for resilience—make GIS indispensable. By uniting operational visibility, growth planning, resilience strategies, and right-of-way management into one system, GIS helps transmission owners and operators meet urgent needs while keeping long-term goals in sight. In this way, GIS not only guides the grid but ensures that society’s lifeline remains reliable, adaptable, and ready for the future.
For more information on how GIS can guide transmission owners and operators, click here.