Underwater robots launched from crewless vessels could become the new repairmen for Scotland’s offshore wind farms under pioneering new plans
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Current industry methods involve vessels travelling into areas of open ocean where a mix of trained divers and ship-based crews manually inspect offshore wind facilities or deploying tele-operated robots to repair individual turbines. Prof Yvan Petillot, academic co-lead at the National Robotarium and principal investigator for the project, said: “We’re only a generation away from our obligation to deliver on our net zero promises by 2050 and 2045 in Scotland, so can’t afford to let the challenges faced by the offshore renewables sector slow down the construction and operation of essential, green energy assets like wind turbines.
The research will be carried out in partnership with Fugro, the world’s leading Geo-data specialist - with the robots to be deployed from Fugro’s innovative uncrewed surface vessels . Scotland’s current offshore wind capacity is around 2 gigawatts - but there are plans to at least quadruple this to 8-11GW by 2030.
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