Case Study| Ensuring High-Altitude Operation Safety, AP30-P2 Empowers Wind Power Equipment Cleaning and Maintenance with "Dare to Imagine, Dare to Do"

Customer Background

According to relevant national policies and industry standards, the regular maintenance and cleaning of wind turbines are crucial steps to ensure their long-term stable operation. The customer's wind farm manages approximately 50 wind turbines, located in a region of northern China with abundant wind resources but also a typical desert and wind-sand erosion area. Long-term wind-sand erosion of the turbine blades easily leads to surface wear, which reduces power generation efficiency and affects appearance. Additionally, oil stains are prone to seep out during the turbine's long-term operation, and the long-term accumulation and adhesion of oil stains on the nacelle pose a risk to the internal machinery's operation. Despite facing a rather urgent need for operation and maintenance cleaning, the customer struggled to find a suitable solution that could simultaneously meet the wind farm's safety responsibilities and operation and maintenance cleaning needs due to the high risks of personnel high-altitude operations, inconvenient transportation and deployment, and high equipment mobilization costs associated with traditional manual cleaning. Thus, the cleaning work was difficult to advance.

• High Risk of High-Altitude Operations: Manual high-altitude operations face safety hazards such as harsh weather, wind force, and falls from height, with the risks further increased in wind farms with strong winds year-round.

• Difficulty of Manual Cleaning in Remote Locations: The customer's wind farm is located in a remote desert area with inconvenient transportation, making manual cleaning costly and time-inefficient. Moreover, wind turbine blades require professional personnel for high-altitude operations, which poses significant safety hazards.

• Cumulative Risks of Wind-Sand Erosion and Oil Stains: Long-term wind-sand erosion and oil stain pollution of wind turbines, combined with the difficulty of comprehensive and efficient handling of these issues by traditional manual cleaning, lead to long and difficult cleaning cycles, resulting in untimely wind turbine maintenance and affecting power generation efficiency. Untimely handling can also cause internal damage to the wind turbines, leading to greater losses.

• Traditional Equipment's Inability to Cover the Entire Unit: Traditional automated equipment struggles to cover complex surfaces such as curved surfaces and nacelles, making it impossible to achieve full-unit cleaning.

The customer adopted a solution centered on the Orion AP30-P2 Aerial High-pressure Cleaning System. In the early stage of operations, the Wisson team used drones to photograph and analyze the degree of dirt on the 50 wind turbines in the customer's wind farm, and customized different detergents and nozzles for floating dust, light oil stains, and heavy oil stains. The wind turbines were then automatically and efficiently cleaned through pre-set cleaning paths. The Orion AP30-P2 Aerial High-pressure Cleaning System, seamlessly integrated with the DJI FC30, achieved efficient, safe, and intelligent full-unit wind turbine cleaning with flexible multi-angle and automated cleaning functions.

• Remote Control and Safe Operation: The system is equipped with laser real-time ranging function, ensuring a safe operating distance between the drone and the wind turbine. Operators can complete all cleaning tasks remotely, avoiding the risks of traditional manual high-altitude operations.   

• Multi-Angle, Fully Automatic Cleaning: Based on self-developed Pliabot flexible technology, the AP30-P2 has flexible adjustable angles, enabling large-area high-pressure cleaning at angles from vertical -60° to +35° and horizontal ±45° in a hovering state. It also supports automatic planning of cleaning paths, greatly reducing the complexity and safety hazards of manual operations.   

• 30L Large-Capacity Water Tank, Supporting Long-Time Operation: The AP30-P2 has a 30-liter large-capacity water tank, which can cover a large area of surface, reducing the need for frequent water changes and improving operating efficiency.

• Modular Design and Multi-Scene Application: The modular nozzle design of the AP30-P2 makes it easy to handle different dirt and adapt to various cleaning scenarios.

• Ensuring Operation Safety: While avoiding manual high-altitude operations, Pliabot® technology empowers the equipment to maintain adaptive stability under high-altitude wind or other external interference, ensuring that the equipment can operate stably even in harsh weather. It is precisely because of the elimination of potential safety risks that the cleaning operation became possible.

• Significantly Reducing Costs: Through the unmanned cleaning system, the customer does not need to dispatch a large number of personnel for high-altitude maintenance, reducing labor costs and the risk of safety accidents.

• Significantly Improving Cleaning Efficiency: Compared with traditional manual cleaning, the AP30-P2 can complete the efficient cleaning of a large number of wind turbines in a short time, reducing downtime and improving the overall operating efficiency of the wind farm.

• Extending Equipment Life, Reducing Maintenance Costs: Regular and efficient cleaning of wind turbine blades helps reduce the erosion of wind turbines by wind-sand and oil stains, extending equipment service life and reducing long-term maintenance costs.