It is inevitable that we will need to build more offshore wind farms if we wish to meet the energy demand of the world with renewable energy. Not only do they cause no damage to the environment, they also create natural ecosystems over time.
What you don’t ever get to hear about is the ongoing operations and maintenance required, the amount of data that is collected, analyzed and stored to ensure that every part of the wind farm is running as planned. Many might question how a profit could be made when you have to have annual safety checks, bathymetric, benthic and other surveys, as well as an administration team to handle it all. It’s estimated that O&M (operation and maintenance) makes up 20-30% of the total cost of a wind farm over its lifetime.
Lower cost, faster data capture
Today, at OceanBusiness 2021, I had a fascinating conversation with MSDS Marine, Fugro, University of Portsmouth and a few others around how these O&M costs could be soon coming down. OceanBusiness is an offshore conference held every two years at the National Oceanographic Centre a couple of miles from my house in Southampton, the UK. The event is a hub for the latest and most popular offshore survey equipment with popular companies like Fugro, Sonardyne, MMT and Kongsberg Maritime, as well as many companies which you may have never heard of that have created a solution or built a system.
There is a very vibrant “new tech” vibe, along with a very old feel that is hard to shift. With the new shiny ROVs, there are still the masses of stands, offering consultancy and “data interpretation” which, if the data was well created in the first place, should never need to exist. It seemed fitting that almost five years after I was last involved with any O&M work that I ask whether we are any closer to fully autonomous survey on wind farms.
The answer is that we are close but there is still a reliance on a manned survey vessel to be present at the wind farm and monitor movement. Battery life is a
consideration for the UAVs, as a wind farm is a large area. Fugro and the University of Portsmouth are keen to point out that this could be set to change, with the introduction of “swarm drones” — this would mean that the UAVs would have awareness of one-another, leading to faster and more efficient data capture. Furthermore, issues around system failure or breakage would be overcome by the ability to empower the other UAVs.
Potential for automation
To be able to reduce or remove the need for skilled technical staff and a fully equipped survey vessel would be a large economic saving. The assurance of consistent capture from a swarm of UAVs that use multibeam sonar of the resolution, that a vessel would carry, would severely reduce the time it takes to capture and increase turnaround time. Strangely enough, this whole concept isn’t just an idea. In March this year, the University of Portsmouth announced Drone Swarm for Unmanned Inspection of Wind Turbines (Dr-SUIT), which is funded by the Future Flight Challenge programme from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) and the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund.
“Ultimately, we are aiming to develop a system that can detect and monitor defects or damages inside the turbine and the entire structure of a wind turbine in a safe and effective way. This will benefit offshore wind farms, reducing the time they have to shut down for maintenance and increasing availability and supply,” said Dr. Sarinova Simandjuntak, the University’s Principal Investigator.
By automating the operation and maintenance of the wind farm, it is assumed that over 50% of the cost could be saved and the time would be significantly reduced. This government funded project using autonomous flying drones is due to be tested in 2022 and will be closely watched by the UK Minister for Business who already sees applications for this technology being applied to Oil & Gas, Forestry, and Solar industries.
