World’s 1st heavy duty drone works 90x faster at Europe’s offshore wind farm

The world’s first heavy-lift cargo drone operations at an offshore wind farm have been launched. Danish green power giant Orsted deployed heavy-lift cargo drones (HLCD) in an operational campaign at the Borssele 1&2 Offshore Wind Farm.

The HLCD will transport cargo from a vessel to all 94 wind turbines of the Borssele offshore wind farm, according to Orsted.

The use of drones to deliver cargo to Borssele 1 & 2 will reduce costs and time, as well as improve operational safety and efficiency.

The company is using the 70 kg drones to transport cargo of up to 100kg in an actual operations campaign after the concept was tested last year at the Hornsea 1 Offshore Wind Farm in the UK.

Drone will prevent risk, making it safer for personnel working on the wind farm

The drone will prevent risk, making it safer for personnel working on the wind farm, and they minimize the need for multiple journeys by ship, reducing carbon emissions in the process.

“Ørsted has led offshore wind’s journey from a niche technology to a cost-competitive and large-scale source of renewable power,” said Rasmus Errboe, chief commercial officer and deputy-CEO at Ørsted.

“The drones at Borssele 1&2 are a great example of this, as they will improve safety, bring down carbon emissions, and reduce the cost of operating offshore wind farms, which all further improve the commercial fundamentals of offshore wind for investors, governments, and corporations.”

According to Ørsted, normally, a vessel would sail from one wind turbine to the next, using a crane to lift each box containing the equipment onto the transition piece, after which the box would be lifted with the nacelle’s crane to reach the nacelle and then be moved to the top of the turbine.

Instead, the drone will simply fly back and forth from an offshore supply vessel directly to the top of the nacelle.

Drone flight from the vessel to the turbine takes about four minutes

According to the company , the drone flight from the vessel to the turbine takes about four minutes per turbine, while the conventional approach without using drones can take approximately six hours, almost 90x faster than the traditional method.

Taking vessel transport between the turbines and from and to shore into account, Ørsted said that it has been able to complete the tasks at Borssele 10-15 times faster than normally.

Ørsted, which has in-house R&D capabilities, believes it can continue to harness cutting-edge technology to make green energy more affordable, reliable, efficient, and sustainable across the value chain.

Recently, the company also piloted a new technology that further optimizes offshore wind monopile installation, and it has deployed autonomous vessels for offshore surveying.