Estimating the impact of drone-based inspection on Cost of electricity for offshore wind farms
Press Rope-access inspection is used as a baseline and accounts for 0.7% of the wind farm operational expenditure. Replacing rope-access inspection with drones reduces costs by up to 70% and decreases revenue lost due to down-time by up to 90%.
Increasing autonomy of drones increases the speed at which inspections can be performed but increases costs and complexity.
For wind farm operator there is marginal economic benefit (2% reduction in inspection costs) in moving towards a fully autonomous drone-based inspection system from the current visual line of sight operation of single drone.
