![\"\"](\"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/10\/Wind-Turbine.jpg\")
\nWind power accounts for 7% of the world\u2019s electricity and about 2% of the world\u2019s energy.\u00a0 While the overall share is rising, it needs to expand much faster if the globe is to meet its Paris Agreement 2030 sustainability goals.\u00a0 Among the world\u2019s nations, China, the United States and India are still the world\u2019s leaders, but Japan is coming up fast.\u00a0 In fact, by 2040, Japan hopes to have one-third of its energy generated by wind power alone.<\/p>\n
Ensuring that its wind farms are as efficient as possible has become a top national goal in Japan.\u00a0 To ensure efficiency, wind turbines need regular inspections, a task that is complicated by their height and remote locations.\u00a0 Ground-based inspection teams are expensive and can\u2019t always reach the turbines easily.\u00a0 But the biggest stumbling block is the need to pause the turbine to conduct field inspections, which substantially reduces their output and productivity.\u00a0 How can this problem be solved?<\/p>\n
With drones.<\/p>\n
Tokyo-based Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) recently unveiled a new technology that takes two autonomous drones, fitted with relatively small commercial radio emitters that communicate with each other at a low level.\u00a0 The alternating signals create a so-called \u201cFresnel Zone\u201d between the two UAVs that operates on either side of a turbine, which allows the drone sensors to detect damage to the installation while it\u2019s still operating at its normal speed.\u00a0 The system has another great advantage:\u00a0 Because the emitted radio signals are weak, the drones can perform their inspection without the need for a special communications\u00a0 license.<\/p>\n
NTT hasn\u2019t tested the experimental radio signal inspection system in the field.\u00a0 It\u2019s still in the proof-of-concept phase, but so far the drone-based system works as designed.\u00a0 The company\u2019s next step is a larger-scale outdoor test on multiple functioning units to further develop its application to real-world wind farms.<\/p>\n
A Korean drone software company, Nearthlab, is following in Japan\u2019s footsteps \u2013 but with a different inspection methodology.\u00a0 The Seoul-based company deploys drones that fly close to wind turbine blades to capture high-resolution images of the structure which are fed into a program for computer-generated data analysis.\u00a0 The drone\u2019s AI software allows the aircraft to identify the precise shape and position of the turbine\u2019s blades and to calculate the optimal flight path for an in-depth inspection.\u00a0 The entire inspection process takes as little as 15 minutes, far faster than any conventional ground-based method.<\/p>\n
Korea, unlike Japan, does not have a major wind power program currently guiding its national energy strategy \u2013 but Nearthlab wants to be ready when it does.\u00a0 In the interim the company is offering its inspection services to Korean companies in other sectors, especially construction, and to wind power clients elsewhere in the world.\u00a0 The company\u2019s state-of-the art AI software can be attached to a wide range of hardware platforms, including Chinese DJI drones, but Nearthlabs also produces its own drone models and assembles all of its products locally, to ensure compatibility with local inspection needs.<\/p>\n
Japan and Korea are indicative of the growing interest in drone technology to shore up the renewables industry.\u00a0 Researchers estimate that roughly a quarter of the total cost of wind energy is lost due to disturbances in maintenance and operation.\u00a0 Improving wind energy competitiveness by improving wind energy system reliability and lowering O&M costs is essential.\u00a0 Drones can play an important role by speeding inspections, reducing their cost and making them safer and more reliable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wind power accounts for 7% of the world\u2019s electricity and about 2% of the world\u2019s energy.\u00a0 While the overall share is rising, it needs to expand much faster if the globe is to meet its Paris Agreement 2030 sustainability goals.\u00a0 Among the world\u2019s nations, China, the United States and India are still the world\u2019s leaders,… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6753\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dronevideos.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}