I'd assume otherwise you have to have a way for the drones to meter their usage and pay the power company. It will likely make power theft easier, but it seems entirely viable to have an account with the power company where you report "I drew X joules from line Y" and for them to bill appropriately.

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adrianmonk 18 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The simplest might be for the drone company to act as an intermediary. They'd bill drone users for charging and have contracts with utilities. The drone company could do some authentication / DRM / etc. so that you'd basically have to jailbreak your drone to charge without paying.

Yes, I'm sure the markup would be large as a percentage, but for most customers the convenience would be worth it. Most of the customers are probably commercial and don't want to risk getting banned or sued.

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ceejayoz a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

That seems entirely unviable to me. Have you met… people?

“Trust me, bro!” is something I wish my power company would do, but they installed a meter instead.

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lesam 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Depends. When millions are on the line between companies, people are surprisingly willing to take a hand-created excel file as 'proof'. For example: https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-pmn/tricolors-excel-g...

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notahacker 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Feels like this is likely to be targeting government and major corporate clients, in which case they're probably in a strong place to negotiate agreements based on charge reported by the drone's on board software. Not to mention the utility companies themselves, who are mentioned as the initial market.

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yorwba 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What's unviable about having the power company vet the thing that reports "I drew X joules from line Y" like they would vet any other meter?

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themafia 21 hours ago | parent [-]

Does the device report directly to the power company, or is that data aggregated and reported in some other format?

If it's the latter then hand editing is all it takes to create fraud.

	▲	closewith 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Hand editing is all it takes to create fraud in all areas of business.

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bri3d 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Unmetered electric service based on "trust me bro" is actually the default (at least in the US) for a huge variety of devices, like streetlights, cell towers mounted to electric poles, public irrigation systems, etc etc.

Almost every US utility has a "UM" process to self-assess an unmetered load's consumption and be billed. So, yes, it's not only viable but widespread.

	▲	rightbyte 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Unmetered electric service based on "trust me bro" is actually the default (at least in the US) for a huge variety of devices I wouldn't talk too loud about this or you will ruin it for all of us. If I discover the street lights on my street mine botcoins I will blame you.

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Analemma_ 21 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

B2B transactions like this are handled fine with contracts and lawyers all the time, I doubt it would be an issue. In the worst case, the utility could own the recharging module on the drone, just like they own your power meter.

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lkbm 17 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I mean, if I have to pay them by how much power I draw, I'm pretty glad they have a way to measure that, because I don't.

What's there alternative in this case? If I can land a drone on the power line and suck up some power, they can either charge me when I tell them I did it, or they can not charge me.

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echelon 21 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

They'll use this narrative to fundraise and build. Then they'll build their own distributed charging infra that becomes a moat.