Project

OVERVIEW

The global wind energy sector has been growing rapidly over the past two decades. According to GWEC Market Intelligence, global cumulative installations of onshore and offshore wind will exceed 1TW before 2025.

Once wind turbines are installed, they are expected to run around 20-25 years, during which O&M (operation and maintenance) becomes crucial to maximise the economic and environmental benefits of wind assets. As turbines age, the cost of O&M is increasing significantly, which will make the O&M business very lucrative in the coming decade. Regular maintenance (inspection and repair) of the WTBs is crucial in keeping the wind assets operated safely and with optimal performance.

Inspections and repair, however, require long downtimes. The WTBs need to be dismantled in some cases. Even with up-tower maintenance, where trained technicians are hanging from ropes or working from suspended platforms on the wind turbine, the blades need to be stopped for a long period (4 to 6 days on average) as manual inspection is a tedious time-consuming work. And downtime is only part of the problem. Blade failures not only lead to greater costs doubling downtime and damaging other essential equipment, a large portion of the accidents also involved human injuries or fatalities.

The need of more inspections and repairs has eventually led to a shortage of qualified staff (well trained technicians) in the wind services market. EWEA pointed out that a shortage of around 5,500 staff was noted in 2012 and it will climb to 28,000 by 2030. A solution to this problem is to utilize a specially designed robotic system that can reach the blade and implement faster inspections and repair (when needed) up-tower. However, current systems are either not agile enough for quick deployment or the inspection capability is limited to surface defects only. Without identifying subsurface defects such as delamination, disbands and impact damages, the repair may not be effective. Therefore, no integrated solution exists that offers high quality inspections, effective repair and human safety at the same time.

CONCEPT

We will develop a robotic solution for inspection and repair of wind turbine blades (WTBs), both onshore and offshore. The inspection unit of Romain consists of lock-in shearography and thermography with laser heating, so that surface and subsurface defects within WTBs can be identified and quantified. (Current techniques including drone-based inspections are limited to surface defects only). The repair unit is able to perform various functions such as applying composite repair patch and heating and compaction curing and consolidation. A compact and efficient robotic deployment system will carry the inspection and repair units to climb along the WTBs to perform maintenance work. The whole system will be operated by engineers working on ground (for onshore wind farms) or on a vessel (for offshore wind farms), hence greatly reducing their risk exposure.

OBJECTIVES

Technical Objectives

To develop a compact robot to carry and deploy the inspection/repair kit along the WTB
To optimise the inspection system to detect subsurface defects within the WTB up-tower
To develop advanced repair techniques to repair WTBs up-tower
To design advanced image processing and AI algorithms to process the recorded images
To integrate the inspection and repair kit with the robot into a robotic maintenance system

Operational Objectives

To demonstrate the main functionalities of the integrated system on a wind turbine
To ensure safety in any possible failure condition
To disseminate the outcome of the Romain field trials
To prepare a detailed cost-benefit model of the application

EXPECTED IMPACT

In the latest EU Renewable Energy Directive issued on 14 July 2021, it stated “Renewable energy plays a fundamental role in delivering the European Green Deal and for achieving climate neutrality by 2050, given that the energy sector contributes over 75% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the Union. By reducing those greenhouse gas emissions, renewable energy also contributes to tackling environmental-related challenges such as biodiversity loss.” Romain will have a substantial impact on the Green Deal by providing a robotic maintenance system to wind farms owners or operators so that the wind assets can operate at optimal performance over the 20-25 year of lifetime and produce electricity with reduced levelised cost of energy.

PARTNERS