Watching Invisible Energy Loss – Yes It’s Possible

By Sohail Hasnie

New technology, mounted on a drone, now allows us to see from the sky where we are wasting energy.

Sometimes we need to see things to believe them.

Imagine you’re a plumber trying to convince a homeowner that a kitchen sink is leaking. Simple – just show him/her the dripping water. But, could you do it in the dark? Listening to the water drip could do the trick, but it would be harder to make the same case.

This is precisely what we have been doing over the years: explaining energy losses to consumers, utility executives, and politicians… in the dark. Put quite simply, it’s an uphill struggle because we can’t see or hear energy being wasted.

When was the last time you left home with a tap running? Probably never, because you can see it, or hear it. The same with a gas leak – because you can smell it.

Leaving the air-conditioning or a light on in an empty room, though, is trickier. Since we cannot see, hear, or smell them, those electricity losses are untraceable. But they are there all right.

The other day I found an interest piece technology, mounted on a drone, that makes invisibles energy losses visible. Check it out in the video above.