Solar and Wind Inspections
Renewable energy is fascinating, humans have been using solar energy since as early as the 7th century. 173,000 terawatts of solar energy strikes the Earth continuously. That's more than 10,000 times the world's total energy use.
With the reduction in initial costs of solar panels and wind turbines, along with the advances in technology, there are an estimated 11,500 wind turbines and around 500 commercial solar farms operating in the UK. Therefore, regular inspections are vital to maintain the structural integrity, prolong the life expectancy, identify defects, prevent unexpected downtime and help to reduce any unexpected maintenance costs.
Traditional inspection methods for wind turbines typically involve a team of 3 inspectors with rope access ability to visually inspect as much of the system as practicable. However, there are always inaccessible areas with this method and the inspection rarely collects visual data. This method is also high risk, time consuming and costly.
Drones are a much more time efficient method for visual inspections, allowing for accurate data to be collected even in otherwise inaccessible areas. Some specialist drones can even be flown within the turbine blades to identify internal defects.
Traditional inspection methods for solar panels involves a thermographer walking an entire site (anything between 1 and 100 acres) with a hand-held thermal camera to identify any hot spots, cracks, defects, rust, blemishes or breakages in the glass, hot cells and corrosion. Another traditional method involves manually ‘dip testing’ a cross section of different parts of the farm to get an overall idea of the performance of the panels.
Drones are vastly more efficient than other methods and can cover a large area in a single flight. Gathering thermal and visual data that can be assessed during the flight as well as post flight to quickly identify defects and inefficient cells.
