Offshore wind maintenance and the importance of survey and inspection

With the current challenges in the world, the need to speed up the transition to renewable energies is getting more and more urgent. Offshore wind energy plays a crucial role in this story but, just as everything else, offshore wind has its own challenges. Building more wind farms is one thing but maintaining all these farms is something completely different. Let’s have a look at the importance of surveying and inspections.

Maintenance of offshore wind is still very expensive, requires careful planning (due to the unpredictable weather) and needs to be done under harsh circumstances most of the time. Especially when you think maintenance is needed 2-3 times a year and maybe even more when the turbine ages. Surveying and inspections play an important role to make sure these farms can last for many years. Sustainability is the key. And fortunately, technology keeps improving and developing when it comes to different ways of executing surveying and inspections.

TRESIOS can be a full-service partner when it comes to offshore wind inspections and survey. We have the knowledge, the people, and the technology all under one roof which allows us to offer custom made solutions, end-to-end. Because this isn’t a one-size-fits-all business, especially when it’s about quality and safety.

Remote, on-site and drone surveying and inspections
Depending on the scope and the circumstances of the maintenance that needs to be done, TRESIOS is able to offer both remote, on-site and drone surveying and inspections. Both in technology as in equipment.

On-site inspections
On-site inspections include visual inspection to NDT methods. This to ensure that the final product has achieved the right quality objective. We deploy complete quality management to ensure project documentation achieves our client’s expectations. Auditing preparation and execution, from internal auditing to external third-party audits; we have the capability, experience, and knowledge to successfully ensure compliance.

Remote inspections
Since the COVID outbreak, we have learned the importance of new technologies such as remote live feed headsets. These live feed headsets are at the highest level of technology to provide instant communication from anywhere in the world, they avoid un-necessary travel and Visa delays, significantly lower costs for your business and gives you the opportunity to work closer with your team from the desk of your home or office. One of the huge benefits of these headsets are third party inspections. Work carried out can be witnessed visually via this software without the need to travel.

Drone inspections
Drones are becoming an integral part of our day-to-day tasks, having that eye in the sky for inspection. Surveys and thermal imaging really do cut the costs dramatically and most importantly it reduces the risk of life of personnel by avoiding the use of scaffold or rope access. Fitted with incredible cameras, these drones can capture high quality images and videos from a distance, avoiding any obstacles and staying clear of the target.

The power is in our people
Offering technology and equipment is not the problem. It’s having the capacity, the people who have the experience and the knowledge and who know how to do the work according to high quality and safety standards. TRESIOS can do both as we have access to a large network of highly skilled, trustworthy, and reliable inspectors and quality personnel. We know these people, as we’ve been working together for over 15 years. Together they form an established and experienced team who can complete any project, both onsite as through remote support.

All our inspectors are provided with project documentation before mobilization in order to familiarize themselves with the project. This is us being efficient and deploying our time, and that of our clients, the best way we can.

We all know how important it is to be prepared and ready for any task that is put in front of us, especially with critical tasks such as inspections. Each and every one of our inspectors come prepared and educated for the task ahead of them. Project documentation, such as ITP’s, quality procedures and specifications are already in the possession of our inspectors, meaning they are up to date with the quality objectives before arriving at the site. This is a huge factor as it saves time, reduces the risk significantly of quality issues, and again most importantly, the inspectors are up to date with the health and safety rules on site.

One and one is three
So, what do you get when you combine technology and equipment with capacity, knowledge, and experience? Exactly, a reliable partner who walks with you the entire way. Our ability to quickly scale-up our capacity enables us to combine services to be able to operate full-service. Like combining quality assurance and control with remote and/or drone services to improve efficiency and lead times.

We don’t stop at the finish but are already going for the extra mile. This makes us not just a service company, we are an extension of your company, the team and therefore you can expect us to always look for the best possible solution. It’s our go-getter’s nature, we just love to do what we do.

Do you want to know more about what our QA & QC Services can do for your company or project? Reach out to Phillip Owen for more information.

Phillip Owen
Head of Quality
phillip@tresios.com

© 2022 TRESIOS | www.tresios.com