EchoBoltBUG

Offshore wind is one of the UK's biggest industrial successes of recent years. In the last decade, the number of offshore wind turbines in the UK has doubled to over 2,000 active turbines, saving 29 megatonnes of CO2 every year, with 10.4GW of installed capacity.


The UK is aiming to raise this capacity to 40GW by 2030 and 75GW by 2050\. As power requirements increase, so does the size of turbines and their distance from shore, resulting in more challenging and costly maintenance. The UK has a compelling Green Recovery opportunity; the Government's Offshore Wind Sector Deal targets a 60% increase in UK content at our offshore wind farms and a five-fold increase in exports.

One of the primary issues that wind turbines face is the testing and re-torquing of offshore wind turbine bolts. Current practice requires technicians to scale wind turbines in hazardous conditions, manually re-tightening as many as 1,000 bolts per turbine. There are 10,429 wind turbines (offshore and onshore) in the UK, equating to an estimated 10.5 million bolts that are critical to the integrity of wind turbine structures. Having to use heavy duty hydraulic wrenches makes this mammoth task time-consuming and high-risk.

The proposed EchoBoltBUG will combine two UK success stories, BladeBUG's robotic walking platform with the EchoBolt ultrasonic inspection device. Unmanned robotic solutions have the potential to make offshore work safer, more resilient and cost effective compared to traditional methods. This project aims to develop an unmanned walking platform that records the sound echoes within bolts, demonstrating exactly when a bolt needs re-tightening, with the potential to reduce the frequency of bolt maintenance significantly. This project will also explore the potential for new technology to automate the parallel measurement required if no ultrasonic reference readings exist.

The UK Government is targeting a five-fold increase in exports from UK offshore wind suppliers (to £2.6 billion per year) by 2030\. Tackling climate change over the coming decades is one of the greatest challenges of our time and offerings such as EchoBoltBUG will be decisive in meeting net-zero targets across the world.