Ørsted claims 'world first' with giant drone delivery to offshore wind turbine
Ørsted claims 'world first' with giant drone delivery to offshore wind turbine | Windpower Monthly
Video footage shared by the company shows a drone carrying and dropping cargo onto the platform of a Siemens Gamesa turbine at the Hornsea offshore wind farm in the UK North Sea, which Ørsted co-owns.
The company claimed the scale of the drone’s trial mission made it a world first in the industry, having previously used smaller drones for supply operations.
Ørsted said the drone used in the operation had a wingspan of 2.6 metres, weighed 58kg and could carry a load up to 68kg to offshore wind turbines, making it the first of its size to supply cargo to offshore wind turbines.
A spokesperson for Ørsted told Windpower Monthly the drone used in the trial transported cable brackets needed for a an internal lift that had broken down. The drones will typically transport spare equipment and tools needed in repair jobs in the future, the spokesperson said.
They added that Ørsted expects to be using large autonomous drones like the one used in the trial in the first half of 2024 for its commercial operations.
The company pointed out that using drones to supply turbines can reduce risk to human operators and minimise the journeys that would otherwise need to be made by service vessels to offshore wind farms.
“We want to use our industry-leading position to help push forward innovations that reduce costs and maximise efficiency and safety in the offshore wind sector. Drone cargo delivery is an important step in that direction,” said Mikkel Haugaard Windolf, who led the project with Ørsted’s offshore logistics team.
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Decades of government support for the development of wind energy has resulted in lower costs and a rapidly growing share of electricity generated by wind turbines. Wind in 2019 accounted for 7.3 percent of electrical generation, surpassing for the first time hydropower at 7.0 percent.