Omexom receives confirmation of compliance to BSH requirements on drone inspection of rotor blades
Published by Jessica Casey,
Editor
Energy Global,
Omexom Renewable Energies Offshore, the offshore division of the VINCI Energies brand, Omexom, is a leading provider of innovative technology solutions in the offshore wind sector, has introduced its new inspection service for wind turbines. The service employs state-of-the-art drones combined with AI technology to carry out inspections of rotor blades. The solution allows faster inspections with an increased accuracy of results and lower incurring cost to customers.
After receiving the DAkkS accreditation of its inspection body in 2021, Omexom Offshore focused on the development of innovative methods that lead to high-quality inspection results. Own tests carried out throughout the development confirmed that the combination of drone technology, an artificial intelligence (AI)-supported database, and subsequent experts analysis, is a powerful tool to deliver conformity evaluations to customers in line with the requirements of the authorities.
The OBSERVAERO solution of Omexom grants their customers a full insight in the status of their assets. This is achieved by using up-to-date drone technology with optimised methods of photography for high-quality pictures of the rotor blades. These pictures are then pre-assessed by a computer-vision engine in the customised-developed data platform, which enables inspectors and customers to view and man-age the inspection results user-friendly and efficiently.
The development of the AI-platform was completely executed by internal re-sources of the VINCI group, to which Omexom Offshore belongs to since 2020. The development setup allows Omexom to customise its solution to all sorts of customers. The development was supported by several VINCI innovation programs, highlighting the strong commitment of the group to renewable energies and innovative technologies. Since the emerging of drones in the market of visual inspection of energy assets, the comparability of them to the traditionally used rope-access inspection is highly discussed. The development initiative was accompanied by a validation scheme to finally clear the way for drone-based inspection results being compliant with regulative recurrent inspection requirements offshore, such that rope-access inspection could focus on detailed damage assessment and repair.
On 20 July 2023, Omexom received confirmation of the compliance of its methodology requirement to the BSH (Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie/Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Authority) by the independent certification body Hanseatic PowerCert (HPC). With that, Omexom can now provide recurrent inspections of rotor blades via drones. The assessment of HPC furtherly emphasises that the methodology of Omexom delivers at least equivalent insights as rope-access inspections.
“Our new solution for drone-based and AI-supported rotor blade inspection is just the first step of innovative services provided by Omexom Renewable Energies Offshore to ensure and optimise the operation of wind turbines of our customers to-day and in the future,” said Lennart Reepschläger, Project Manager at Omexom Offshore.
The new inspection service is available now and can be used by all customers worldwide.
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Read the article online at: https://www.energyglobal.com/wind/25072023/omexom-receives-confirmation-of-compliance-to-bsh-requirements-on-drone-inspection-of-rotor-blades/?yptr=yahoo
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