A pair of UK companies have successfully demonstrated technologies to aid the maintenance of future offshore wind developments with support from GE Renewable Energy and the Offshore Renewable Energy (ORE) Catapult.
Eleven-I and Innvotek carried out the work through the ‘Stay Ashore’ research and development programme.
Innvotek, a Cambridge-based innovation consultancy, was able to further develop a robotic crawler which uses magnetic technology to attach itself to a turbine generator and autonomously detect the presence of certain features in order to carry out vital maintenance work.
Derbyshire-based Eleven-I used the project to further develop a structural health monitoring system, which uses cutting edge software and data analysis to monitor blade health throughout its lifetime.
“It’s been fantastic to work with these two innovative UK companies, alongside our colleagues at GE Renewable Energy,” said ORE Catapult’s principal portfolio manager Graham Smith. “The progression this has allowed for each of their solutions will go a long way to helping improve several aspects of future offshore wind development, as well as continuing to grow the opportunities for more UK companies in similar fields of expertise.”
Also commenting, Innvotek’s chief technology officer Michael Corsar said the company was very happy with the successful completion of testing for the robot. “It’s been so exciting to be part of the Stay Ashore programme, which has been a vital part of progressing our technology, and we firmly believe this will reduce the time people have to spend working in challenging conditions. It’s an ideal job for a robotic solution like this.”
Eleven-I chief executive Bill Slatter added: “Working with ORE Catapult has allowed us to draw on their fantastic collective knowledge and facilities to fast track the development and demonstration of our wind turbine blade monitoring system, which has now been adopted by a number of OEMs and operators.”
The development of robotics is seen as a vital component in the future roll out of offshore wind developments in the UK, and according to ORE Catapult research, could cut inspection costs by almost 40% in the years to come.