Background
At a wind farm in Europe, a nearby resident reported unusual noise coming from a turbine. Standard protocol required shutting down the turbine and waiting up for an external contractor to carry out an inspection and then continue with the repairs.

Challenge
With no immediate access to third-party inspection services, the turbine was offline for weeks— leading to significant generation losses and revenue impact.

Solution
Instead of waiting, the site team could have immediately deployed Eve, their on-site inspection drone, to investigate the issue. They would have quickly  identified the problem by just checking the images or with our AI assisted process, which in this case was wear on the leading-edge tape 

Outcome
The team would then arrange a quick repair and have the turbine back online within just a couple of days—saving nearly a month of potential downtime.

Quick napkin Cost/Savings numbers:

For a 2,000 NEH (Net Equivalent Hours) site with a 2.5 MW turbine, 4 weeks of downtime would result in the following production loss (assuming evenly distributed wind, though real-world conditions vary):

• Energy Lost:
  (2,000NEH/52weeks)×4weeks= 153NEH
  153NEH×2.5MW=385MWh
• Revenue Loss:
  385MWh×€20–€50/MWh=€7,700–€19,250

This figure excludes the additional cost of third-party inspections.

By preventing just one such downtime event, you can fully offset the investment in a compact, in-house drone-a tool that not only avoids delays but also serves your entire fleet over multiple years.

Takeaway
Having Eve on site enables a team to stay in control and respond immediately. What was in this case a costly and time-consuming issue that could have caused potential issues with neighbours due to noise, can now be resolved swiftly, demonstrating the value of fast, autonomous inspections in maintaining turbine reliability and generation performance.