Blue economic proving ground

海上风电行业采用机器人和自主系统对于实现净零所需的可再生能源扩张至关重要。有三个令人信服的原因：1。为了实现我们的净零目标，到2050年，英国的海上风电容量需要增加七倍以上。这意味着要将作业推进到更深、更偏远、更危险的水域，而人类安全进入的天气窗口也更窄。机器人可以承担日常维护任务（例如，在英国陆上和海上风力发电场中，目前有3万个叶片表面出现严重裂纹和侵蚀），或者检查这些发电场中大约1000万个螺栓的张力和完整性。最终，这将意味着更好地先发制人地维护和控制这些基本的净零资产。最后，通过更好的预防性维护，我们可以延长海上组件和涡轮机的使用寿命，帮助行业向循环、零浪费的经济发展。降低这些技术在行业中应用的风险是关键的下一步。该项目展示了技术开发人员如何在拟议的测试和验证设施网络中测试和获得其技术的独立验证，该网络建立在我们位于法夫的利文茅斯示范涡轮机，位于布莱斯（诺森伯兰郡）的国家可再生能源中心和格里姆斯比的卓越运营和维护中心。

Adoption of robotics and autonomous systems by the offshore wind sector will be vital to achieving the renewables expansion needed for Net Zero.There are three compelling reasons why:1.To achieve our net zero targets, the UK's offshore wind capacity will need to increase more than sevenfold by 2050\. That means pushing operations into ever-deeper, more remote and more treacherous waters with narrower weather windows for safe human access.2.Robotics can take on the routine maintenance tasks (such as scouring the surfaces of thousands of blades for critical cracking and erosion (there are 30,000 currently at UK wind farms -- onshore and offshore) or checking the approximately 10 million bolts at these farms for loss of tension and integrity. Ultimately, this will mean better pre-emptive maintenance and control over these essential net-zero assets.3.Finally, with better pre-emptive maintenance, we can extend the lifetime of components and turbines at sea, helping the industry progress to a circular, zero-waste economyDe-risking these technologies for adoption by industry is the crucial next step.This project shows how technology developers can test and gain independent validation of their technologies at a proposed network of test and validation facilities, building on our Levenmouth Demonstration Turbine in Fife to our National Renewable Energy Centre in Blyth (Northumberland) and Operations and Maintenance Centre of Excellence in Grimsby.