Source: Ørsted
Inspecting the blades of the world’s largest wind turbines is no longer a daunting task. Drones from SkySpecs, provider of robotics solutions for the wind energy industry, recently completed an automated inspection of 32 turbines operated by Ørsted off the UK coast.
The 80 m long blades of the 8 MW turbines comprising the Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind farm were inspected in a 20 minute time frame by the robotic assistants. This represents an 85 percent reduction in maintenance time.
Ørsted’s Senior Technical Project Lead David-Lee Jones said “Bigger turbines have certainly helped in the rapid cost reduction we’ve seen in offshore wind, but also means we face new technical challenges in terms of inspecting and maintaining the turbines. Providing consistent image quality across the largest turbines offshore requires consistency from the drone. This was the purpose of our work with SkySpecs. We really wanted to validate that their technology could provide the type of precise and robust inspection capabilities that Ørsted expects.”
