AI could boost efficiency of solar and wind

Artificial intelligence (AI) could start to play a role in the inspection, due diligence and planning, and even the construction of solar and wind power plants, according to a position paper from DNV GL. 

The paper, Making Renewables Smarter: The benefits, risks, and future of artificial intelligence in solar and wind, outlines advances in robotics, inspections and the supply chain and the opportunities for energy stakeholders to embrace AI. It says AI will increasingly automate operations over the next several years and boost efficiencies across the renewables sector.

Decision making and planning, condition monitoring, robotics, inspections, certifications and supply chain optimisation, and also the way technical work is carried out, could all be affected by AI, says DNV GL.

The paper makes the point that due to the relatively recent development of the renewables industry, sensors and data are already a big part of the sector – so AI is already playing a part in resource forecasting, control, and predictive maintenance.

‘We expect the installation of more sensors, the increase in easier-to-use machine learning tools, and the continuous expansion of data monitoring, processing and analytics capabilities to create new operating efficiencies – and new and disruptive business models,’ said Lucy Craig, Director Technology and Innovation at DNV GL – Energy.

The main areas DNV GL highlights as potentially benefiting are in robotics, with new benefits in maintenance and troubleshooting for remote inspection. Crawling robots that can get close to a structure’s surface could enable a new set of technologies such as microwave and ultrasonic transmitters and receivers, which could be used to penetrate structures to reveal faults in materials, says DNV GL.

The supply chain could be optimised by autonomous driving robots, which could in the future build entire onshore wind or solar farms. According to DNV GL parts of a wind turbine or a solar array could be transported from the factory by self-driving lorries, unloaded by another set of robots, attached to foundations that other robots have dug and filled, and pieced together by a final set of robots and drones.

If you think management jobs might be safe, DNV GL also says that AI could help in decision making ­– driving costs out of energy development, production, and delivery in the solar and wind industries.

‘Solar and wind developers, operators, and investors need to consider how their industries can use [AI], what the impacts are on the industries in a larger sense, and what decisions those industries need to confront,’ said the paper’s co-author Elizabeth Traiger.