The maintenance of offshore wind farm has until now been an expensive, inefficient and dangerous process that relies on a team of rope access specialists working at height with sufficient vessels and safety crew to assist.
All manner of weather ranging from hail to lightning, rain, salt and dust are common issues that wind turbine components must endure throughout the calendar year.
A UAV drone inspection on your offshore wind farm is a cost-effective and time efficient inspection method in comparison to more traditional rope access and high level platform inspection methods. With our fleet of aerial drones, we can offer both visual and thermal images of wind turbines for live on-site analysis and assessment.
With our thermal imaging services, we can offer the added benefits of:
- Non-contact and non-destructive inspection methods
- Show temperature on large areas of rotor blade for comparison
- Detection of hidden defects and failures that human inspections would miss
- Detection of objects in dark areas that human inspections could miss
- Detection of erosion and corrosion through salt air
By using commercial UAV drones to conduct offshore wind farm turbine blade inspections, we can reduce or eliminate so much of the risk and costs of conventional methods.
The wind farm industry is booming and with it, there needs to be a reliable and dependable method of conducting the vital inspection of turbine blades with minimal downtime.
Currently, a significant percentage of the cost of offshore wind turbine inspection comes through the accessibility of the wind turbines during inspection. Minimising the need for human intervention during inspections is a key route to maximising the potential output of offshore energy generation. The inspection of these wind turbines is vital through the various stages of each turbines life. In most countries, the regular inspection of wind farms is a legal requirement.
With Balmore, you will find a reliable, objective and independent UAV drone inspection service provider that is fully qualified, trained, certified and insured to conduct aerial drone inspections for offshore windfarms.
We can conduct inspections to determine:
- The condition of wind farm turbines and assets
- The performance of maintenance and repairs
Our inspections can be performed at any required point during the wind turbines life cycle. Typical milestones used for aerial drone inspection include:
- Assessing asset performance and condition during operation
- Planning and evaluating maintenance
- Investigating damage
- Extending the lifetime of a wind farm
The potential implications if a wind turbine is offline for unscheduled maintenance can be substantial in lost revenue a day (not including the cost of repairs, support vessels, technicians and engineers).
Spotting minor problems on your offshore wind turbine blades early can prevent these minor issues escalating into costly stoppages, lost revenue and high repair bills.
Inspections can cover all components of wind power generation systems including the rotor, nacelle, tower, foundation and electrical system. We can inspect both onshore and offshore facilities – including offshore substation platforms.
If you would like to know more about Balmore and our Offshore wind farm inspection survey services, please contact our head office.
