Digital technologies will continue to have a significant role in the sustained growth of the wind industry, says DNV GL in their report Digitalization and the Future of the Wind Energy. In this survey of almost 2,000 stakeholders within the energy industry, 45 per cent of respondents in the offshore wind industry said that digitalisation is part of their core strategy.
According to more than 60 per cent of the industry, data visualisation and automation technologies will have the greatest impact today. Respondents believe that digitalisation can help to improve operational efficiency, decision making and cost efficiency, especially in dealing with difficult to access offshore wind turbines.
Over the next three years, augmented and virtual reality is thus expected to become more important, as it can support training for the new generation of engineers expected to work on offshore wind farms. By replicating the conditions experienced by wind turbine engineers, training can be conducted in a realistic, but safe environment.
However, to fully incorporate digitalisation, the industry needs to first deal with concerns over access to its vast amounts of data. According to 37 per cent of respondents, data sharing is cited as a barrier to further digitalisation, as there is a limited willingness in the industry to provide more transparency in order to protect competitive advantage and intellectual property.
Despite reservations, the report shares that there are advantages to sharing data. It mentions the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, ORE Catapult's SPARTA project and Engie as examples of data sharing initiatives that have benefitted the wind industry at large.
As the wind industry strives to remain competitive as part of global energy transformation, driving continued digitalisation will be instrumental in enabling a decarbonised world.
To learn more about how digital technologies can shape the wind industry in the years ahead, read the full report Digitalization and the Future of Wind Energy.