AUGUST 2019 | MANE ENERGY | 9
PLANS TO DESIGN ROBOTS TO REPAIR WIND FARMS WINS £4.2M FUNDING, WILL IT WORK?
A new research project which aims to develop a system of crawling robots and driverless boats to quickly repair offshore wind farms has been given £4.2m in government funding from Innovate UK.
The project involves organisations including universities of Bristol, Manchester, Royal Holloway and Wootzano, a British company developing an electronic skin for robots.
The project itself will run for two years, it will use BladeBUG robots, which use suction pads to crawl along the turbine blades. The Royal College of Art Robotics Laboratory is developing a robot arm which can be fitted onto the robots in order to repair the turbine blades whilst the devices cling to them.
If successful, the project could save the average wind farm around £26m in repair costs over the course of its lifetime researchers have said.
Will be exciting to see what the project has resulted in, in two years’ time!
ANNOUNCE NEW 90 MEGAWATT
OFFSHORE WIND AGREEMENT
Back at the end of May, technology giant Microsoft announced a new wind energy agreement in the Netherlands developed by Dutch-based wind farm developer Eneco, wherein Microsoft will purchase 90 megawatts (MW) from the mammoth 731.5 MW Borssele III/IV offshore wind farms.
Microsoft signed a 15-year Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Eneco. This marks Microsofts second purchase of wind energy in the year, bringing its total wind energy purchase up to 270 MW – one of the largest corporate renewable energy portfolios in the
country.
What’s next for Microsoft?