Aerial Drone Inspections For Wind Turbine Blades

Aerial Drone Inspections For Wind Turbine Blades

Before the use of drones for wind turbine blade inspections, companies would need to rely on rope-access technicians which is quite dangerous, time-consuming (up to 3 days to fully inspect a tower), and costly (when factoring in all downtime of having turbines not producing energy). The alternative would be ground-based photography but oftentimes this leads to lower quality inspection data and potentially missed defects that could lead to more serious breakdowns later on.

With drone-based wind turbine inspections coming to the forefront, renewable energy companies can leverage aerial inspections to reduce risk, improve efficiency, save money, all while getting highly accurate and consistent data.

Aerial wind turbine inspections make regular preventative maintenance a much more seamless process which can significantly extend the lifespan of wind turbines and allow all assets to output maximum power at all times.

Using drones for wind turbine blade inspections allows O&M companies to prioritize maintenance and manage assets over their lifetime, which gives owners high-quality production to meet their output goals. These aerial blade inspections also give insurers and claims adjusters a comprehensive view of all assets before paying warranty damage claims.

Skye Link’s wind inspection reports identify various blade damages such as lightning strikes, small splits along bond joints or cracks in other areas, UV radiation damage, leading-edge erosion, delamination, pitch errors, gel coat degradation, among other wear and tear over time.

 

Applications for using drones in wind: 

Site Selection: Map vegetation, terrain and water features to assist with site selection.

Due Diligence & Pre-purchase Evaluation: Interested asset buyers can request a detailed inspection report of wind blade and turbine health.

Insurance Risk Assessment: Understanding the condition of assets can help customers request discounts from insurers if the assets are in good condition.

Insurance Claims Reporting: After a storm or other damaging event, owners can quickly assess damage for insurance claims.

 

 

Why Skye Link?

We are a professional drone service company using UAS for wind turbine blade inspections and streamlining the aerial data collection & analysis process.

Collect High-Quality Data:

Our service platform allows us to provide on-demand nationwide drone services for wind inspections by deploying experienced remote pilots with experience flying thermal, LiDAR, visual asset inspection missions to capture high-quality data.

Receive Accurate Inspection Reports & Analysis:

We then process & analyze the data to produce highly detailed actionable wind turbine inspection reports that identify issues with exact GPS locations. With regular inspections conducted over time, our wind turbine inspection solutions offer operational insights over the asset lifecycle enabling effective long-term asset management.

Interested in Learning More? Let’s Connect!

Talk to our professional team to get your questions answered and begin utilizing the power of drones and aerial data to effectively inspect wind turbine blades.