Aerones is a Latvian company specialising in robot-enabled turbine inspection and maintenance services. Aerones secured the Innovation Fund support provided for highly innovative, market-ready, scalable and ambitious infrastructure projects aimed at CO2 emission reduction. Spinverse supported Aerones in their successful application phase by providing the company with project preparation support.
Leading edge erosion is one of the most common issues with turbine blades. As wind turbines become larger, the rotation speed at the tip of the blade can exceed 360 km/h. At these speeds, even rain can cause the erosion of the leading edge and reduce the turbine’s efficiency. Therefore, even a small amount of erosion can result in a significant reduction of annual energy production.
Aerones launched their exciting project in October 2023. The project is estimated to reach its entry into operation in December 2025. The company plans to use the Innovation Fund grant of more than 4,4M€ to produce and deploy the world’s first robotic wind turbine blade leading edge repair service. The total budget of the project is approx. 7.4M€.
In the project, 30 first-of-a-kind robotic systems for wind turbine generator rotor blades repair are manufactured and developed. This will enable faster leading-edge repair tasks in similar or better quality than human personnel. The robotic rotor blade leading edge repair services will make production of wind energy more efficient, affordable, and sustainable, while also considerably reducing the risks associated with human personnel working at heights. The project will result in shorter downtime during repairs, leading to emission savings and higher efficiency of power generation from wind.
According to Aerones, the funded project aims to achieve turbine repairs within 18 hours, significantly minimizing downtime and contributing to global climate goals. Their approach is estimated to lead to a reduction of 67% in repair downtime, avoiding 161,349 tons of CO2 emissions over a decade and enabling the production of an additional 918,320 MWh in renewable electricity.
Spinverse team had the pleasure to support Aerones with this groundbreaking Innovation Fund project preparation. The team was expertly led by Project Manager Leena Vedenpää and supported by Marja Jallinoja, Miguel Lopes and a few other colleagues. Gints Kučinskis, Researcher at Grants Project Unit, comments on the successful collaboration as follows: “Spinverse provided a solid framework for structuring the proposal content and effectively highlighted areas that needed further improvement. What we appreciated the most was their advice, drawn from their extensive experience with various proposals. This added a valuable layer of expertise and significantly enhanced the quality of our final submission.’’
This project supports the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG):
Photo: Aerones.
More information: https://aerones.com/aerones-receives-e4416000-grant-from-eus-innovation-fund-for-new-robotdeployment/