The following is a transcript of the Aug. 31, 2026, episode of Public Power Now. Learn more about subscribing to Public Power Now at PublicPower.org/Podcasts. Some quotes may have been edited for clarity.
Paul Ciampoli
Welcome to the latest episode of Public Power Now.
I'm Paul Ciampoli, APPA's news director.
Public power utilities are at the cutting edge when it comes to thinking outside of the box and utilizing the latest technologies to improve operations.
One example is the use of a robot dog named Astro, which is being utilized by California public power utility SMUD.
Here to discuss how the utility is benefiting from the use of the robot dog is Eric Poff, director of substation telecommunications and metering assets at SMUD.
Eric, thanks for joining us.
Eric Poff
Yeah, thanks for having me, Paul.
I've been looking forward to this.
Paul Ciampoli
Sure thing. I have as well, since this is really an interesting and kind of unique topic of conversation. So thanks again for joining us.
So Eric, just to get our conversation started, what prompted SMUD to acquire the robot dog and what are the ways in which it's currently being utilized?
Eric Poff
I've been looking at aerial drones and robotics for some time and have always had a strong interest in that technology.
And when I came across the ANYbotics robot, I really saw it had strong recommendations from EPRI….[which] had done a survey with them and rated the robot, their robot in particular, at the top of that study.
And so that's what kind of energized this pilot for us.
Paul Ciampoli
And so you mentioned EPRI. Could you provide a little more description of them?
Eric Poff
Sure, yeah. They're a research institute. They look at all things, electric industry and kind of seen as a gold standard.
They did a pretty in-depth study a few years ago looking at four or five different what's called dog-like robots out there.
And they put them through a series of tests, from everything from ability for payloads to security response to safety.
And again, the ANYbotics product was at the top of the list.
And that really helped us kind of narrow our focus down when we launched this pilot.
Paul Ciampoli
And I would assume in terms of the Electric Power Research Institute, you guys doing any other ongoing projects with them at this point?
Eric Poff
Yeah, they've had a very strong interest. We've really leaned into this. It's a three-year pilot that we are doing and they have a very strong interest in that.
We've been communicating with them on the results that we've gathered so far. We're in year one now. I can't believe it. We started last August.
And we've learned a lot, and we've been communicating that, and they're very much looking at it from a business case as well, as we go through this three-year study.
Paul Ciampoli
And last follow-up question for you.
So you mentioned drones.
I'm assuming SMUD utilizes drones to some degree or is that not correct?
Eric Poff
That is correct, Paul. We do. We've been utilizing drones for some time.
We have the Upper American River Project. As you go from Sacramento up towards the Tahoe area, we have pretty significant river hydro operations and our power generation group.
And so all of that power comes back down here to Sacramento through the transmission lines.
And so as you can imagine we utilize our drone technology up there quite a bit to ensure that all of that equipment is in good order as [it] goes through different weather conditions up there.
So yeah, we've been utilizing drones for some time now.
Paul Ciampoli
And when did SMUD start utilizing the robot dog?
Eric Poff
Yeah, so I would say we officially started a year ago, but we had to lay down some groundwork in that. I've been [at] about two years of interfacing with ANYbotics and robots.
And again, kind of going back, I love using this analogy around fishing and hunting.
You know, SMUD’s been around for 70 plus years now, and… I like this analogy around fishing, right?
I don't want to offend any fishermen, audio listeners that you might have, but fishing, you're sitting on the lake shore with a beverage and you're watching a bobber, right? You're waiting for a bite.
And I compare that to what we've done with oil tests, right?
We have an oil test that comes back bad and we're like, oh, a lightning bolt went through the transformer, damaged the paper and that's what we see in the oil sample and we react right? We have to go and replace said transformer -- so hunting however takes a lot more effort.
You have to go out in the woods, you have to track and requires sweat and knowledge, right? And that's where I compare our three robot dogs that we go out there.
We are hunting for those early signature signs that, you know, an insulator, right?
Often we refer [to an] insulator as a bushing on a transformer. And that's what carries that electrical current from the outside power lines and it goes through the metal tank to the internal windings.
And if that insulator goes bad, then that's where you can get a short circuit, and damage, an arcing event that can damage the transformer.
So that's what the infrared, the partial discharge testing that's embedded into the robots, they're out there every day now hunting for these early signatures so we can prevent the damage, right?
And this goes back to our enterprise strategy around safety, reliability, and cost savings, right?
So safety, I've got 100 of my crews, I've got 250 people in my organization, and about 100 of them are out there working in these conditions.
So obviously, we want those conditions as safe as possible.
The reliability piece, if one of those pieces of the substation transformers gets damaged, then that's going to have an impact to our customers.
And then the cost savings as well is really exciting about this pilot. Every time we have a finding, that's a cost avoidance, right?
We can, in a controlled manner, lock out, tag out that transformer, go change that bushing out and put that equipment back in service and avoid a several million dollar cost that we would have had to pay if we missed that transformer, missed that early warning sign that that insulator was bad.
Paul Ciampoli
And one thought just cropped to mind for me is, so obviously this is a cutting edge technology and artificial intelligence is also, everyone's talking about that these days.
So has there been any exploration or possibility that you could overlap the use of AI with these robot dogs?
Eric Poff
That's a great question. We are looking at that right now because when you look at, again, what I find fascinating is the human and the interface, right, of this technology.
So before we had a human, Tim, who's excellent, like he really has a gift for these IR inspections.
And whatever data he can collect on a daily basis coming through, right, and coming to our engineering group, what's called a garden hose of information, right?
And now we have a fire hose of data of three robots on a daily basis going out to, let's call it, three or four substations a day and all that data is coming back to that same engineer, right?
And so how do we utilize AI to say, I say call balls and strikes on, hey, 85% of this, 90% of this, don't worry about it, engineer. Here's the 10% of the pictures -- images that the three robots captured that you may want to take a look at.
And so we're working through that now on how do we utilize AI to ensure that it could do this on an accurate basis.
Paul Ciampoli
All right, great.
And so now you mentioned the three-year pilot program and the robot dog being part of that program.
Obviously, we've covered a lot of ground already.
I don't know if there's anything further you wanted to provide in terms of additional details on that program.
Eric Poff
I’d just say we're discovering so much on the different applications -- I'm trying to squeeze all of the goodness that we can out of this asset, and we started thinking like, okay, during the day, Astro -- and we're using the Jetsons theme here as you might have picked up with Elroy and Judy or the other name of the other two robots -- and so they're just during the day working hard in the substations collecting data for us.
And then at night, they're sitting in the van.
So here in Sacramento, probably in other places, some occasionally, some of our substations downtown get broken into and they get copper theft.
So could we utilize the same robots in the evening to patrol the outer area -- deter bad guys from breaking in?
And again, I look at it in the same vein. I'll say it again.
I look at safety as public safety as well, right, and reliability. If they're going there and they damage something, it's probably going to trip the transformer and it's going to impact customers. And then cost. They're stealing copper. Well, guess what? We have to go replace that copper.
So it really ties back to our enterprise strategy of keeping people safe and reliability and cost. So we're just now getting into that.
And I don't know if we would have thought of that in particular if we wouldn't have launched the initial pilot with the substation.
So just all kinds of new learning and ideas are being generated with this pilot.
Paul Ciampoli
And so obviously it sounds like there's been a lot of benefits that are flowing from the dog so far.
So against that backdrop, is SMUD considering acquiring and using additional robot dogs in the future?
Eric Poff
Yeah, great question. So as I mentioned earlier, we're near one of a three-year study.
And I want to make clear…SMUD has not purchased anything. Think of this as robot as a service.
I call it bumper to bumper warranty because if anything from a software issue happens from a hardware issue happens…ANYbotics is covering that as a robotic service.
The worst thing you can do right is to have a stranded asset you've invested in -- doesn't quite do what you want it to do.
So that's why we're really teasing out this three-year pilot and studying what the results are before we do any financial investment into a capital outlay into something like this.
But one of the one things that's kind of funny, the only issue that we have had -- to ANYbotics credit -- when you look at the robot, as it's walking, it has little rubber feet.
And we've had some extreme temperatures out here for us anyway, in the 110s, 112s.
And the substation, we have an AB gravel rock, like most substations do and the rocks were so hot, we measured them at like 130 something that it was starting to melt the pad of the feet of the robot.
It's literally one screw and you put a new shoe on. But that's the only thing that we've had as an issue with the robot.
ANYbotics [is] a Switzerland-based company [and] they've been excellent partners with us. They've been really embedded with us. They've done all the training for our three robot operators that we have, and they've been just great partners with us.
Paul Ciampoli
I know I'm kind of throwing a lot of follow-ups at you, but it's a really interesting topic for me. And thanks again for speaking with us.
So obviously, I don't have to tell you that California, especially in the summertime, can get super hot.
So in terms of this technology with these robot dogs, any concerns or things you guys are monitoring in terms of the heat during the day?
Eric Poff
No, that's a great question.
One of the reasons why we went with this particular, on top of the EPRI study that I mentioned earlier, is it is completely dustproof, waterproof. It can...survive in a lot of different conditions.
The range on it, the temperature to answer your question is, again -- so I didn't do it in Fahrenheit, but negative 40 to a 550 Celsius. I don't know how hot that is, but it can operate in extreme temperatures.
Like I said, it was operating when we were in 110 plus temperatures with no issues.
When we were out in our extreme time -- this summer's been much more mild, but we were originally utilizing a Ford Lightning…We had it in a Ford Lightning and it has a special kind of battery mount where it will actually sit down on and it has essentially a QR code where it finds its location to be able to properly sit itself down.
Well, during those hot summer temperature days, the sun was so bright, it was washing out the QR codes, so the robot couldn't find exactly where to battery mount himself.
So we've now switched to a van, we call it the Astro Van, and that's a much better application for safely transporting this robot from substation to substation.
Paul Ciampoli
Yeah, and I would encourage listeners, as I was preparing for this interview, I noticed there was...a lot of interesting local TV coverage and I believe there's one video segment on one of the local news stations where they show the dog being unloaded from a van, right?
Eric Poff
Yeah, that's a great, that KCRA is our local news and that, if you get a chance, just type in KCRA SMUD robot, it'll pop right up.
And yeah, they did a great job, I thought, on really taking, you know, what could be somewhat of a, you know, complicated, you know, issue and really breaking it down into a fun kind of superhero cartoon type of format.
I was kind of in awe, you know, we had a drone taking video coverage of a robot. Here we are. The future is here.
Paul Ciampoli
Great point.
So I guess my next question for Eric kind of goes to the training side of things.
And I want to give you the opportunity to talk about the training process for SMUD staff with respect to utilizing the robot dog?
Eric Poff
Yeah, that's great. So we entered into an agreement because this is a new technology with IBEW and I just want to thank our IBEW partners to coming in with an agreement around this three-year pilot and understanding the importance. And so we have our IBEW operators, we call them maintenance workers.
Their main responsibilities are to go around to all 270 substations on a monthly basis.
It's part of the general order.
I believe it's 165, I think, for the California Public Utility Commission that we're not obligated to abide by, but we do.
So those are the three folks that we've trained.
Edward Cervantes is our first, and Tim Frost were our original operators with Astro before we brought on the other two operators. We call Edward the OG of the operators.
They spend, I think, two days going through online courses, and then they spend another week or so in the field with a trained technician from ANYbotics to get all of the hands-on experience and how to operate the robot in different situations and do a little bit of troubleshooting with it as well. So they feel very confident and the user interface is amazing.
You can see it in that KCRA video as well.
Essentially an iPad that they're using to drive it around.
But once they program the substation, it is 100% autonomous, and it'll go and complete its mission of capturing the infrared and partial discharge signals within the substation.
Paul Ciampoli
And are you aware of any other utilities, public power or otherwise, that are utilizing similar robot dogs?
Eric Poff
Yeah, since we've launched the pilot, I've become quite popular. So I've had about four.
I tell people this all the time is, Astro, I will, no matter what I do here or anywhere else, I will never be as popular as Astro.
But yeah, I've spoken to several utilities around us and that's another great thing about us in the utility industry.
We don't treat ourselves as competitors.
When somebody learns something, we share it, and it's hard to think of a different industry where that happens.
And so I've been speaking to several different utilities around here. So yeah, [we] are really good about sharing information around once we discover something.
And again, when you look, go back to cost there just for a second.
When I started this job as the director for substations here five years ago, transformers, distribution substations, I remember buying them for under $1,000,000, and now I can't get one for $4 million over the five years, there's such a demand for, as everything's being electrified, right?
So that makes these transformers -- and also lead time too, I won't get into the supply chain piece of this -- but getting a save…whether Tim is out there finding, or whether it's a robot that goes out there and saves it, is such a cost savings.
Like one finding -- pays back, right?
Paul Ciampoli
Yeah, that's a great point because I think it's fair to say that the supply chain issues and transformers specifically, it's not going to get cleared up anytime soon.
So anything you guys can do or the utilities can do to kind of maximize performance is huge.
Eric Poff
Right, in fact, squeezing every, we don't run things to failure, of course, here at SMUD, but squeezing, using technology and data to squeeze every useful life out of that asset is really important.
Paul Ciampoli
So Eric, I wanted to pick your brain in terms of kind of, if you're a listener, another public power utility that decided to pursue the use of a robot dog, what advice would you give the utility in terms of things to consider before pursuing next steps?
Eric Poff
Yeah, that's a great, great question, right?
It's so much excitement, which is great, right? Like we've got different use cases kind of coming at us, left and right.
We're seriously looking at another one to inspect. I mentioned our hydro team up towards Tahoe.
We've got a lot of pen stocks up there that have to, you know, a human being has to go into a confined space.
Why can't we, again, utilize this technology to do that instead of having the human and build a virtual reality model of the inside of the pipeline and have a much better product and not put a human in that environment.
So you're going to get a lot of excitement because the robot's cool and you're going to have all these people thinking like, let's do this, let's do this.
So going back to your question, scope, get the scope nailed down. This is what we're going to do and this is the business case around it because there's going to be a lot of, let's do this, let's do this, right?
All good ideas, right? And I find myself, often, focused on what was the main thing that we're trying to do here.
So I would say that is the big thing. And again, I can't say enough about ANYbotics.
We've had a couple little things pop up here and there, lots of learning, but again, I'll just reinforce, make sure that you've got somebody who's on board with you that wants to, take this journey with you.
Paul Ciampoli
Yeah, that's a great point.
And I guess, you know, what you were just describing in terms of another possible use scenario, there's also a safety element to this, right?
In other words, starting with the starting point that, a robot dog could duplicate to a large degree what a human could do in a situation that could be, present some challenges that could in turn address safety concerns, right?
Eric Poff
Yeah, exactly. We're excited about that inspection.
You know, we're, again, it's looking at like, why would we put the human in the situation of a confined space, which the definition of a confined space is not made for human occupancy, right?
And why would we do that when we could utilize this technology? And again, the product, right?
Like the thought here is mounting the 360 degree camera, taking thousands and thousands of photos of the penstock and digitally stitching them together.
And you literally could build a virtual reality model of the penstock.
And that same civil engineer that had to put the respirator on and go in there could sit at the comfort of his or her desk and put the headset on and do the same inspection.
So I would suggest maybe even a better product out of it and the safety, to your point.
So I think the safety component of this has just so much potential.
Paul Ciampoli
And I would imagine that also, one of the great things about a three-year pilot program is it's not a static situation, but you guys are constantly learning and thinking about new use examples, but again, kind of touching upon the scenario we're talking about, you could potentially, you or another utility had a robot dog, you could go to a company and say, hey, we're looking at this as a potential new use.
Perhaps there could be some tinkering around the edges in terms of maybe reconfiguring the design down the road such that they could maybe be more maneuverable. I don't know.
Eric Poff
Yeah, I know there's a lot of products out there.
I've seen that instead of feet, I've seen the wheeled robots, you've seen those, yeah, very amazing, like agile and you know, so yeah, I describe it, you know, we're going to a baseball analogy that we're at the top of the first inning, you know, and I'm excited that SMUD is willing to like really embrace, you know, new technology and like let's do it in a controlled pilot environment where we can see what value can unlock for this.
And so, yeah, I'm very, very blessed to be at this company.
Paul Ciampoli
Yeah and so one other quick follow up.
So this is, as we've talked about, this is a three-year pilot program.
At the end of the three years, I would assume that there will be a deliverable in terms of kind of overview of how the project went.
Eric Poff
Yeah, so we're working with EPRI on that. We want to be transparent on what were the expectations, what were the wins, what didn't quite work out.
So yeah, we're working with EPRI and partnering with them. We're looking to be transparent on what the results are at the end of these three years.
Paul Ciampoli
Okay, great.
And kind of just moving on from this specific topic, wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about your role in terms of the description of your role as director of substation telecommunications and metering assets.
Eric Poff
Yeah, so just real briefly, we've got 250 folks in my group.
We've got -- I mentioned the substations, a very large chunk of that is covered within our IBEW team –- metering -- 700,000 meters out there.
Our telecommunications group is taking all kinds of different devices, everything from microwave towers, the radios, they ensure all of that data is coming from the substations from the Upper American River Project and bringing all that down to our distribution operators to ensure that all the plants can be run.
And again, I've got the civil engineering, electrical engineering teams within my group that are actually constructing new substations, replacing old transformers and circuit breakers and that type of thing.
Got a real eclectic group of folks. I've got a hazmat team in mine. I've got a survey team and a whole bunch of just different folks, about nine different groups in total within my group.
Paul Ciampoli
Okay.
And then other than the robot dog, any other projects you're involved with at SMUD that you'd like to highlight?
Eric Poff
Gosh, the automation piece, the one that just kind of pops into my mind, we've been working on this for a few years, going to 3D CAD drawings.
And that is just -- it seems like the next logical step in the technology evolution.
And really just rolling that out this week with our electrical engineering teams and our civil engineering teams.
And seeing it in the three-dimensional, that flat CAD drawing that I've been looking at for the last three decades that I've been doing this type of work, now seeing it, being able to rotate it and being able, the software is so good, it will tell you if you've got a conflict.
It won't allow you to build if a piece of rebar is going to block a conduit in the model, right?
I just see that as really eliminating any errors or conflicts that we find during the construction process.
So I'm super excited about that kind of next technology evolution in our group.
Paul Ciampoli
And the CAD acronym, that's Computer Aided Design.
Eric Poff
Yes. Okay. Thanks, Paul.
Paul Ciampoli
Oh, no, sure. I just wanted to double check on that.
And okay, well, Eric, this is great.
I thank you so much again for taking the time to speak with us today.
It's been a really fascinating conversation.
And I think this is a great example of how public power utilities are really on the cutting edge of a lot of new technologies.
So thanks again so much for taking the time to speak with us and wanted to kind of perhaps float the idea of you returning at some point in time where we could maybe a year from now take a look at how the pilot program is progressing.
Eric Poff
No, it's my favorite subject. I'd really be honored to do it. Thank you, Paul.
Paul Ciampoli
Okay, great. Thanks again, Eric.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Public Power Now, which is produced by Julio Guerrero, graphic and digital designer at APPA.
I'm Paul Ciampoli, and we'll be back with more from the world of public power next week.
