If you take a blade from a Nordex 155, you have a blade of about 77 m metres. In comparison, a football pitch is between 110 to 120 metres. So, a blade such as this is essentially quite big.

If you inspected 3 of these blades and their 4 sides, it would equate to inspecting, in a really detailed way (you would need a magnifying glass), the side of 8 football pitches, which seems like a big job.

In just 34 minutes, our Dhalion system completes the full inspection – detecting damages even as small as 2-3mm. Even more amazingly, we do it in a windy place and maintain a safe distance from the wind turbine while keeping maximum perpendicularity.

Interested? Reach out!

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The company, which has bases in the UK and Europe, has been carrying out wind turbine inspections at EuroEnergy’s site in Greece earlier this year successfully using its unique DOT drone and Dhalion system.

EuroEnergy, which is a subsidiary of Libra Group, has now bought a Perceptual Robotics’ Dhalion drone, allowing them to conduct their own drone inspections going forward while receiving all the benefits of inspections’ analysis and reports from the Bristol-based company.

The Dhalion system is designed to undertake autonomous in-depth turbine inspections, collecting high-quality data from turbines in less than 20 minutes, and quickly analyse the data collected. 

EuroEnergy is a renewable energy investment company with operating assets in Greece and Romania with a track record of acquiring, developing and operating more than 500MW renewable energy assets across biogas, solar and wind power. The Libra Group is focused on six sectors: aviation, renewable energy, maritime, hospitality, real estate, and diversified investments, with subsidiaries active across six continents.

Theofanis Mermigkousis, COO of EuroEnergy, said Perceptual Robotics had impressed them by offering a different type of inspection for its wind turbines.

He said: “As one of the leading renewable energy companies with operating assets in Greece and Romania, ensuring we can keep our turbines at maximum output is essential to the success of EuroEnergy. Perceptual Robotics’ Dhalion drone has the benefit of being fully automated while allowing us to track the progress of any damage on our turbines over multiple inspections. This means we can ensure we are maintaining our assets to the best of our ability, cutting costs and increasing safety. We are delighted to enter into this partnership with Perceptual Robotics.”

Perceptual Robotics initially carried out inspections at EuroEnergy’s Tripoli site in the summer, doing everything in house to demonstrate the technology.  

Engineers at EuroEnergy have now undergone training with Perceptual Robotics to operate their own Dhalion drone, allowing the company to carry out their own inspections in house on wind turbines and explore together solar panels inspection. Perceptual Robotics will continue to produce the results of each inspection within 48 hours, with EuroEnergy able to access the data anywhere in the world.

Kostas Karachalios, CEO of Perceptual Robotics, said the two companies were exploring the possibility of using Dhalion to inspect EuroEnergy’s solar sites in the future.

He said: “This is the beginning of a great partnership between EuroEnergy and Perceptual Robotics. We are thrilled they have singled-out Dhalion as their inspection system of choice after experiencing the success of the system for themselves at inspections we carried out this summer. We look forward to strengthening this relationship over time with the possibility of inspecting EuroEnergy’s solar and other assets.”

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The post An insightful time at Onshore Wind Conference 2022 appeared first on Perceptual Robotics.

Want to talk #inspections #wind #robotics? Get in touch to meet with Derek.

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Want to get a head start over the next season? Get in touch to discuss our all-year-round inspections and how we can help optimise your repair strategy.

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Our CEO, Kostas Karachalios, shares his prediction for a decentralised data-driven future and much more in his interview with Utility Week.

Read his full interview here: https://utilityweek.co.uk/meet-the-innovators-kostas-karachalios-perceptual-robotics/

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#anniversary #renewables #offshorewind #robotics #windturbines

The post Six years and counting! appeared first on Perceptual Robotics.

There are now thousands of wind turbines installed, most in the best locations for wind energy. However, many of them are coming to an end of their regulatory life but not necessarily an end to their productive life.

Providing we can extend the regulatory term in the wind farm, we can keep benefiting from these excellent locations for wind energy without significant investments both in terms of CAPEX and also in terms of new resources and materials allocated (use sustainably what we have instead of dismantling). To this end, we need to be sure that our existing blades can cope with a lifetime extension beyond the initial planned lifespan and design.

Wind turbine operational readiness and availability to produce power to the grid 24/7 all year round is based on a number of factors over their lifetime: 

1. Initial Operational Design
2. Operational installation/ Maintenance
3. Production/Energetic availability
4. Designed lifespan of a turbines operations of 20-25 years
5. Lifetime Safety guarantees

All five of these points are with a provision that the specified inspection/ maintenance is completed, regular inspections and testing are performed periodically, and faults are rectified with a timely and planned approach.

If one of the above points is not SMART from the offset, we are setting ourselves up to fail. 

Then it becomes crucial to assess the state of blades prior to taking a decision on extending the life of the wind farm, as only with all the data and foreseen investments at hand will the decision be an informed one.

A thorough blade inspection is needed. High-resolution images from all sides of the blade allow us to detect any significant damage that can progress in the foreseen life extension or require immediate action or even the replacement of a blade. We need to take into account the different factors that affect a replacement of an old blade, such as:

• Do they still manufacture them? If so, where? If not, can I repair it? How much downtime will be involved?
• Is there crane availability in the area? Have craneage areas been removed after build? At what cost both in time and expenditure?

Based on the data we may end up concluding that, in some cases, a repowering of a wind farm is a much better idea than a life extension, while in others the conclusion may be the opposite.

What our automated inspections can add in value is not only their speed, low cost, and high resolution, but also our Artificial Intelligence, which is sure to detect more damages than usual inspections and therefore provide a more accurate forecast for the future.

Lifetime extension involves much more than just a quick decision. Fortunately, Perceptual Robotics has tools that can help you today to make these decisions on an informed basis.

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