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View From Above: Rising Use Of Drones To Make Energy Industry More Efficient
Green mobility 11/04/2021

View From Above: Rising Use Of Drones To Make Energy Industry More Efficient

Unmanned aerial vehicles have progressively made their way as exploration, inspection, detection, maintenance and delivery tools in the renewables sector.

Here are some key areas of drone use in renewable energy, and several notable innovations underway

ENGIE Green’s CLARITY project couples drones with laser-based analytical systems to spot invisible defects under the surface of the wind blades.

The use of drones in the energy industry was for long limited to aerial surveys for oil and gas operations. But in the last few years, unmanned aerial vehicles have progressively made their way into other parts of the sector — including renewable energy.

Drones can be used for delivering tools and oversee operations; they can detect pipeline leaks and even carry out basic repairs; and they can inspect equipment stretching across vast solar and wind farms in just a few hours. In other words, drones can make renewable operations both safer and more cost-efficient — all while enabling more rapid deployment of clean-energy technology.

But so far, drones have had their wings clipped by regulators. UAVs are a nascent yet rapidly evolving technology, and aviation authorities around the world have struggled to keep up. Today however —  with the European Union recently publishing new regulations, and broader international standards in the pipeline — we may be approaching the beginning of the long-anticipated UAV boom.

Here are some key areas of drone use in renewable energy, and several notable innovations underway:

KEY AREAS

Drones equipped with sensors and cameras play a growing role in gathering data to better detect existing and impending system failures in renewable operations. In addition, aerial surveillance is a cost-effective and safe way to carry out routine inspection of common clean-energy technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.

  • Safer inspection. Wind turbines are typically 80 to 120 meters high and require frequent inspections. This is usually done by a professional who rappels down the structure after having inspected the turbine and 45-meter blades on a breezeless day. Current estimates say that blade repairs can be done 12 times faster if defects are repaired early. ENGIE Green’s CLARITY project couples drones with laser-based analytical systems to spot invisible defects under the surface of the wind blades.
  • Infrared solar imaging .Utility-scale solar farms are using drones to identify maintenance and repair issues undetectable to the naked eye. By equipping drones with thermal cameras, inspectors can get a perfect indicator of panel performance from a relatively high altitude. Typically, these images to detect fragile cells inside the panel are taken at difficult angles with hand-held cameras; but with the help of a drone, a full day’s job can be reduced to less than an hour.
  • Aerial scoping. Airborne surveys are also an affordable way to gather large volumes of topographical and geological data with high-resolution images collected from the air. Among the benefits, these images can generate models that can help identify the optimal layout for a solar utility array.
  • Off-the-grid delivery Drones can also be a greener alternative to traditional freight options if deployed correctly. This is especially true when bringing spare parts or tools to off-the-grid renewable energy sites in areas lacking in road networks.

CLARITY: to see clearly under the surface

INNOVATIVE PROJECTS UNDERWAY

Sea surveys In the UK, a team of researchers are using drones to scope out the sea potential marine energy sites.

  • In what they hope will prove a more cost-effective alternative to traditional seabed sensors and survey vessels, the drones will provide high-quality films of the maritime movement.
  • The video will then be fed to an algorithm that tries to approximate the speed of the moving water and identify the optimal sites for the installation of tidal turbines
  • Throughout the 12-month project, the team will undertake tests in a range of weather conditions in Ramsey Sound, Wales, and Pentland Firth, Scotland.

Measuring biomass

A joint university project in Germany is exploring aerial surveys as a way to sample the biomass of cattle feed. The ultimate goal is to better determine the quality and quantity of the grasses in a given pasture in order to make more sustainable decisions in agricultural site management.

  • Equipped with a short-wave and near-infrared multi-camera system, a custom-made drone provided aerial imagery of an experimental field divided into plots with different nitrogen fertilization treatments.
  • The researchers found that it is possible to achieve a high spatial and temporal resolution of currently small to medium-sized farmland in agricultural applications. The main advantage of multispectral imaging is that it offers a non-intrusive way to estimate biomass based on the spectral information of the reflected sunlight from the monitored farmland.

Off-shore UAV operations

At the Rentel offshore wind farm, 34 kilometers off the Belgian coast, a pilot study aims to replace critical, ad-hoc operations with unmanned drones.

  • The partner companies, DEME Offshore and Sabca, have already performed tests including search and rescue operations, environmental surveys, turbine and substation inspections, as well as parcel deliveries.
  • The test flights featured a long-endurance surveillance drone that successfully flew 35 kilometers from the Belgian coast to the Rentel wind farm, as well as an automated resident drone that conducted a full search and rescue demonstration using infrared detection and lifebuoy dropping.
  • The companies hope that the study will lead to new safety and critical applications beyond the offshore wind industry.


ENGIE EYE - Leading innovation up high

ENGIE has been setting its eyes on ground energy activity for years now through various R&D projects led by the Drones & Robots Lab at ENGIE Lab CRIGEN. Thanks to the Clearance platform, which provides drone pilots with secured access to controlled areas for their many missions. The projects include:

  • Wind power Inspection of wind turbines is a costly and time-consuming operation where drones can help. ENGIE Lab CRIGEN’s Drones & Robots Lab has been developing and pre-industrializing an autonomous drone solution with the goal of ensuring both mission safety (no jamming, GPS free, vision-based AI navigation) and data quality (distance lock for iso-sensor settings) as well as dividing by four the blades’ inspection time. The autonomous drone solution allows quicker inspection, thus reducing the turbine’s total downtime and the financial losses induced by the interruption of energy production.
  • Solar energy ENGIE Lab CRIGEN is assisting ENGIE Green on the development of new offers to help solar projects across all phases : project, site clearing, construction, commissioning, inspection, maintenance and site surveillance. The objective is to be able to cover the whole solar chain and transfer the technology to operational units.
  • Biodiversity The Drones & Robots Lab, together with ENGIE Green, provided operational support in 2019 to bird conservationists locating nests of Montagu’s harriers, a protected species of birds that live in corn fields where wind farms are installed. The drones were able to approach birds at a non-invasive distance without degrading the crops, while considerably speeding up the nest identification process. With the POC being a success, the Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence Lab will also step in to develop AI tools for monitoring the nest locating process on the long-term and ENGIE Green will extend its monitoring work to other species that need protection in and around green energy products.

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