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They can maintain wind turbines more safely.
Wind energy is a super energy source – a together with solar energy, both are considered reliable – however, huge wind turbines have some drawbacks. One of them is that a huge amount of raw materials are needed for their construction, which mainly means steel and concrete – both of which unfortunately have a very significant carbon footprint for the time being. This can be a solution if instead of large buildings they produce wind energy with lighter structureshowever, it is important to use the existing facilities as long as possible, as this way the size of their carbon footprint can be reduced.
Maintenance is not an easy task, as the height of even the smallest wind turbines roughly rivals that of a ten-story house, and the largest offshore units can reach a height of 150 meters – about half the height of the Eiffel Tower.
Until now, the maintenance and cleaning of the giant paddle wheels, or even the de-icing of the turbines, has been carried out by industrial alpinists, which is no longer an easy task on land, but imagine the same thing in the middle of the ocean, aggravated by icy winds.
The solution was Aerones can be delivered by a startup that recently received a capital investment of nearly 39 million dollars for the development of its special robots – writes Electrek.
The Riga-based company was founded in 2015 with the support of Californian venture capital investor Y Combinator. Since then, the company has carried out the maintenance of around five thousand turbines in 19 countries, which included the cleaning of around 12 thousand blade wheels. By way of comparison, there are currently nearly 71,000 wind turbines operating in the USA alone, so the company will certainly have work for a while, especially if it works with the world’s largest wind energy producing companies, such as Siemens, Gamesa, Enel, General Electric or Vestas.
The company recently presented a prototype of its special robot, which was developed specifically for the maintenance of offshore wind turbines. The small, lightweight robot can even be transported to the shore in a van, and from there it can be transported by boat to the turbine awaiting maintenance.
The robot is controlled by three technicians from ground level, so they do not have to climb up high. According to Aerone’s experts, the structure performs turbine maintenance about six times faster than industrial alpinists, and it also costs 40 percent less.
The blades of wind turbines can become hollow and crack due to weather conditions. With the help of ultrasonic sensors and cameras, the maintenance robots are able to examine the paddle wheels, remove dirt from them, and fill cracks with a special space-filling material. They can also apply a special protective coating to the paddle wheels, which prevents them from icing in colder areas. If necessary, they can also wash the blades with the help of a high-pressure water jet and cleaning agents. By the way, the water used in this way can be collected with the help of funnels so that it can be used again later.
Even last spring, the company developed a robot that can crawl inside the blade wheels and create their digital twin, thanks to which future maintenance of wind turbines can be planned much more precisely.
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