Pole Audit Solutions for Texas Electric Utilities
Hash-chained landowner complaint records for utility pole audits: SHA-256 history entries, EXIF-embedded photo evidence and server-recomputed photo hashes — built for the January 2027 filing date set by 16 TAC Sec. 25.63.
A pole audit solution is the documentation a Texas electric utility uses to show — to landowners, to the PUCT, to its contracted reviewers, and to FEMA after a disaster declaration — that every distribution pole was inspected, classified, remediated, and reported on schedule. AcreSeal covers the landowner complaint part of that record: each complaint is hash-chained from the moment it is filed.
AcreSeal documents the landowner-complaint part of that work. Landowner complaint records are hash-chained when filed. When a utility seals a work order, each complaint's environmental digest, which includes its capture-time photo digest when a photo was filed, becomes a leaf of a signed, timestamped seal, checkable at acreseal.com/verify without an account. Pole condition checklists are recorded but not yet hash-chained or sealed. When a JPEG photo is uploaded, AcreSeal writes provenance EXIF into it and re-hashes the stored file, rejecting the report if the bytes differ from what the phone sent. Each complaint keeps a timestamped history of its status changes, each entry linked to the one before it. The exports are built against the plan elements in Sec. 38.103(b) and the annual update due each May 1 under Tex. Util. Code §38.103(c); whether a reviewer accepts them is their decision.
We built AcreSeal for the 75 Texas electric cooperatives, 72 municipal utilities, and 6 investor-owned utilities that need to file initial plans by January 1, 2027 under 16 TAC §25.63 — and for the disaster-recovery filings that follow when wildfires, hurricanes, and severe weather damage that same infrastructure.
What modern pole audit solutions provide
SHA-256 hash chain
Each landowner complaint carries its own chain of history entries, each storing the SHA-256 digest of the entry before it. The public check at acreseal.com/verify confirms those links are unbroken, so a removed, reordered or inserted entry shows as a break. It does not re-hash an entry's contents. Pole condition checklists are not yet hash-chained.
EXIF embedding + server-side hash recomputation
Each stored JPEG carries an AcreSeal provenance block (the report's location, the upload time and the photo digest), and the server re-downloads the image and recomputes its SHA-256, rejecting the submission on mismatch. What that establishes is that the file has not changed since submission; camera EXIF, where present, is device-supplied and is not cryptographically authenticated.
Compliance reporting + audit trail
Compliance reports with remediation tracking, and review-ready PDF + CSV exports. Every status change is recorded with its time and linked into the complaint's history.
FEMA Public Assistance Category-codified exports
FEMA Public Assistance Category-codified PDF exports for disaster recovery filings — Category-aware classification, municipality-namespaced packaging for a FEMA Public Assistance filing; whether FEMA accepts it is FEMA's decision. Each package carries its complaints' record IDs and their link to acreseal.com/verify.
Public verification endpoint
Anyone with a report's tracking code — a landowner, a regulator, an insurer or a member-consumer — can check that its history links are unbroken, and get the digest to compare with the stored photo, at acreseal.com/verify. No login. No subscription. The verification layer is part of the product, not a separate service.
Why traditional pole audits fall short
Paper forms, scanned PDFs, and shared spreadsheets all share the same structural weakness: nothing prevents a record from being edited after the fact, and nothing proves it wasn't. When the PUCT's reviewer asks whether a landowner's complaint record has been changed since it was filed, “trust the source spreadsheet” is not an answer.
Manual workflows also drift. Field crews log inspections in one system, office staff transcribe into another, and the connection between the original field observation and the regulatory submission becomes a chain of human judgment calls. Every transcription step is a potential audit-trail gap.
The cost shows up under regulatory pressure. When the PUCT requests documentation for a specific complaint or inspection, recovering the original evidence — the photo a field tech took on March 14, the GPS coordinates at the time of capture, the weather conditions at the moment of inspection — can take days or weeks. During a disaster recovery filing, that same delay translates directly into delayed FEMA reimbursement.
AcreSeal closes that gap for landowner complaints: the complaint record is the evidence, hash-chained from the moment it is filed, with its photo digest, GPS point and weather. Pole condition checklists are not hash-chained.
How AcreSeal's hash chain works
Landowner complaint records in AcreSeal — with their photo digests and state transitions — are hash-chained: each history entry stores the SHA-256 digest of the complaint's previous entry. Only records attached to a sealed work order also carry a Merkle root, RFC 3161 timestamps and a transparency-log entry; a landowner complaint on its own is hash-chained, not sealed. Each complaint's history begins at a genesis entry. The public check confirms that every entry names its true predecessor; it does not re-hash an entry's contents.
The photo's capture-time digest is part of the complaint record. When a JPEG is uploaded, AcreSeal writes provenance EXIF into it (that digest, GPS and timestamp) before storing it. A photo extracted and circulated on its own can be checked against the published digest with `shasum -a 256`, which establishes that it is the same file — it does not, on its own, prove where it came from.
Checking is public. Complaint receipts, complaint exports and FEMA Public Assistance packages carry the record ID and a link to acreseal.com/verify, where anyone holding it can check the complaint's history links without an account.
Built for Texas HB 144 and SB 1789 compliance
Tex. Util. Code §38.103 (HB 144, 89th R.S., 2025) requires every Texas electric cooperative, electric utility and municipally owned utility that distributes electricity to the public to file a pole inspection and management plan; initial plans are due January 1, 2027 under 16 TAC §25.63. After that, utilities file one annual update each May 1 under Tex. Util. Code Sec. 38.103(c).
SB 1789 directs the PUCT to adopt statewide structural integrity standards that the pole inspection plans must align with. AcreSeal's data model is built around the Sec. 38.103 subsection structure so that the export packet maps cleanly to the criteria the PUCT's reviewers uses during review.
For utilities also preparing DCRF (Distribution Cost Recovery Factor) filings, AcreSeal's landowner reports show which poles landowners reported, when, and how each report was handled, with each report's history hash-linked; whether a DCRF reviewer relies on them is the reviewer's decision.
How utilities use AcreSeal during the pilot phase
A utility pilot is $3,500 flat for 90 days, up to 500 poles or one agreed circuit, credited in full toward your first annual subscription ($12,000) if you continue. It works alongside a utility's existing inspection schedules and complaint intake; it does not replace them. Field inspection capture is not part of the pilot.
- Import of your pole inventory from a CSV or GIS export within 5 business days of receiving the file
- Access to the full platform: landowner complaint intake, the utility dashboard, pole condition checklists, deadline and records tracking and the regulatory export center
- One annual update export (Tex. Util. Code §38.103(c))
- One pole inspection and management plan summary template, pre-populated from your imported data
- Email and video-call support during business hours, Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central
Start with the free Readiness Assessment.
See the hash chain in action.
Twenty minutes to walk you through the SHA-256 chain, the EXIF and hash-recomputation photo workflow, the FEMA Public Assistance export, and the compliance reporting. No slide deck — a working demo.
Want to verify a record without scheduling anything? Try the public verification endpoint →