Drones Inspecting Wind Turbines – the Floodgates are About to Open

Last week, I attended the AWEA Wind Energy Conference in Orlando, Florida. Walking from booth to booth representing DroneView Technologies, I tried to soak up as much knowledge and information that I could in an industry that is experiencing rapid change in the way wind turbines are inspected.

The recurring theme that attendees left the conference with – drones are safer, quicker, less expensive and can achieve superior inspection results (when compared with people climbing the wind turbines to do inspection).

Change comes slowly. While there has been some uncertainty and confusion with regard to regulatory issues and technical capabilities of using drones for inspection this is rapidly changing.  

The floodgates are about to open. Wind turbines owners and their third party maintenance providers will increasingly adopt drone inspection and maintenance protocols.

Over the next several years, drones will become the dominant tool used to capture actionable data in wind turbine inspection.