Measure’s drone inspection service has already been used to successfully examine more than 400 MW of wind farms.

“Many wind-farm owners don’t inspect their turbines on a preventive maintenance basis, and those that do use ground crews with conventional cameras and zoom lenses. Under both conditions, there is a risk of failing to detect turbine damage or structural defects on blades that can worsen over time and lead to a catastrophic failure,” said Harjeet Johal, Measure VP of Energy Infrastructure and a 10-year veteran of the renewable energy industry with a PhD in electrical engineering.

“Our drone-based inspections provide multiple advantages that can help wind farm operators operate at peak capacity,” Johal added.

Measure’s package spans all inspection and reporting functions, including state-of-the-art drone equipment, safe and insured flights by experienced drone pilots, efficient data processing that pinpoints blade damage and severity, and damage reports and analytics available through a secure online portal.

Benefits of Measure’s drone-based blade and tower inspections include:

• About 75% faster inspections than other methods, averaging 30 minutes or less per turbine compared to as much as two hours for manned inspections. This reduces excessive time commitments and allows large wind farms to be inspected more frequently. It also reduces labor costs for inspection and frees employees for other tasks.
• Decreased injury risk in the field, with no threat of falls to inspectors climbing turbine structures or blades.
• Better defect and damage detection because drones get closer to turbine blades than ground cameras, capturing clearer images. Undetected defects on the blades can result in continuous efficiency losses as high as 6% and associated revenue loss of up to $10,000 annually per turbine.
• Maximized turbine availability and revenue generation through early problem detection that helps prevent critical failures and associated downtime for repairs.
• Actionable data, including classified damage reports and historical portfolio analysis documenting turbine defects, failure rates and efficiency losses over time. Damage reports can be customized to display only the information needed by blade repair technicians with a few clicks.

“Our global wind portfolio is currently 1,033 MW with 877 MW in the U.S. alone. Knowing the health of our wind assets is essential for us to provide reliable power to our customers,” said Adam Brown, U.S. Drone Program Lead at The AES Corporation, a Fortune 200 global power company. “Using drones to inspect the blades and towers makes it safer for our people as they can stay firmly on the ground while still being able to inspect, at scale, hundreds of wind turbines to ensure they have the highest availability.”

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Measure has thousands of completed drone flights, and services are standardized to ensure safe, legal and insured flights, as well as accurate data capture that can help customers pinpoint operational problems and make critical business decisions.

Measure Springfield offers turnkey, industry-specific solutions that combine best-in-class drone technology with professional drone pilots, data collection, data processing and easy-to-understand reporting

The franchise’s primary focus is on the construction, energy, and telecommunications sectors. Capabilities range from include inspecting wind and solar farm infrastructure, as well as surveying construction sites.

All services enable customers to take advantage of the efficiencies and insights of drone technology without the time, expense, and experienced personnel required to manage their own drone programs.

“Our franchising program is designed to build a nationwide drone services network that can provide efficient, quality aerial data collection to clients anywhere in the country while also ensuring adherence to strict operations, maintenance and safety criteria,” said Dan Rothfeld, Measure Senior VP of Franchising. “With the Reisers’ aviation and business backgrounds as well as Bryan’s commercial drone credentials, Measure Springfield will be a strong link in the chain we’re building to advance the use of drone technology in the business world.”

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A Measure drone inspects a 20-MW solar plant for AES, and provide safe, legal, and insured operation for the energy industry.

“This is the year drone technology gets fully integrated in operations,” said Brandon Torres Declet, CEO of Measure. Torres adds that they are seeing a push to move beyond the R&D phase to get drone technology fully deployed into the field.

“AES has proven the technology works at scale, with more than 3,000 flights logged in 10 countries,” he added. “We are excited to be chosen as their strategic partner to ‘make drones work’ at scale across their global portfolio of energy infrastructure, and to improve safety and increase availability of their energy solutions in the United States and abroad.”

In 2016, Measure pilots, many of them veterans, flew more than 1,100 flights for some of the largest and most innovative Fortune 1000 companies. Partnering with AES, a leader in the use of innovative technology in the power industry, Measure continues to prove the value of safe, legal, and insured operations at scale for enterprise organizations.

“Drone technology has proven itself at AES over the last three years, improving safety by reducing hazards across 15,000 hours of work and regularly increasing the availability and productivity of our energy solutions,” said Bernerd Da Santos, Senior VP and COO of AES.

“With Measure, we are making this technology standard across all of our businesses globally as quickly as possible,” he added.

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