One of the biggest concerns for offshore wind farms is maintenance. The farms are often located a significant distance out to sea, which can lead to treacherous conditions or prolonged trips for workers. They can, therefore, be costly to maintain.
Using drones to monitor offshore wind. Credit: EnBW
An early concept of what using a drone to monitor an offshore wind farm could look like. Credit: EnBW
Drones offer an easier way to check the conditions of wind farms and give passage to workers, and a new three-year scheme spearheaded by utility firm EnBW, solar and wind farm developer Energiekontor and the DLR, Germany's Federal aerospace research centre, is set to test drones for servicing offshore farms.
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Partially funded by Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection, the scheme will see logistics and passenger drones service wind farms by flying people and materials out to sea.
Advancements in air mobility over the past few years have made projects like this a reality. The use of drones could significantly reduce carbon emissions compared to the ships that traditionally take maintenance crews out to these sites, making the farms, and Germany's entire grid, greener overall.
Continued investments and breakthroughs in eVTOL technology could also make the engines themselves more efficient and faster, which could stand to eliminate another major obstacle in the servicing of offshore farms - effective work time for crews.
Drones could also see applications in checking outside conditions of wind farms, while software can monitor for faults, fix efficiency hitches and prevent unnecessary shutdowns.
The project has shown early signs of promise, with an overwhelmingly positive reception from the drone sector.
"We received only positive responses in our first discussions with drone experts. The use of drones can also add value and contribute to reducing costs. As flight paths are almost exclusively over uninhabited areas, we anticipate fewer restrictions than for Urban Air Mobility,” says Dr Michael Splett, the Head of Offshore Operations at EnBW.
"As the operator of offshore wind farms, we would like to contribute to making this new logistics approach a standard service worldwide,” he added.
While modern maintenance services offer perfectly safe working environments, the firm claims, it can still be time-consuming and costly. Airlifting tools and materials directly onto the top of wind turbines can eliminate the need for heavy machinery such as cranes, which could not only save time, but money.
Offshore wind offers a number of advantages over its onshore counterpart, particularly in Northern Europe, where sea levels tend to be quite low. This means there is an abundance of opportunities for new wind farms without the potential for legislative battles associated with building in the countryside.
This comes with one major caveat, however. Offshore wind farms typically require far more maintenance than onshore, due to challenges such as corrosion, fatigue, and biofouling. EDF Energy described offshore wind maintenance as a "logistical challenge," with the first and foremost priority being the safety of the crew.
The use of drones in monitoring turbines will also require slight infrastructure changes, namely the development of landing and launch pads on the structure itself.
“Our role is to bring wind energy and cargo drone technologies together and address a number of fundamental challenges," said Jonas Janke, a project manager and offshore specialist at EnBW.
"Among the issues to be clarified are how offshore wind farms need to be equipped to enable the use of drones, what a drone landing platform could look like, how a transport container needs to be designed and what communication interfaces could look like."
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The project is also set to explore the legal framework for operating transport drones at offshore wind farms and identify any as yet uncovered legal aspects for this application or conflicts with existing regulations. It will attempt to come up with solutions about how this can best be implemented.
Because of this, extensive practical tests are already being prepared, and all drone developers are invited to help the team find an answer.
The first workshops on the project - dubbed the "Drone Oscars" - are due to be held at Hamburg Wind Energy 2022 convention in September.
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