A Unicorn in Wind Energy?
DRONES: Cover Story on Wind Turbine Inspections
The latest issue of the DRONES magazine features a cover story on wind turbine inspections and one of the leading company in this industry: AeroEnterprise.
With reference to The Future Energy Consulting Company's (TFECC) white paper on "Drones in Wind Energy" that was published in July this year, the DRONES magazine highlights in his article on intelligent wind turbine inspections the innovative SensorCopter technology developed by AeroEnterprise.
Founded in 2015, AeroEnterprise has gained a reputation for the quality of data delivered and they are one of the frontrunners in integrating artificial intelligence in image analysis and evaluation. Furthermore, their drone technology is a proprietary development that has superior flight capabilities in strong winds when compared to the commercially available drone designs used or slightly upgraded by other drone inspection service providers.
Early on, AeroEnterprise attracted funding of the EU Commission's Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (which became the European Innovation Council meanwhile), as part of their mission to support the commercialization of high-risk, high-impact technologies in the European Union. The Agency realised the potential of AeroEnterprise's innovative technology as well as the data-driven business model, which resulted in continuous support of the innovation development over two project phases and several years. Today, these projects are a success story for the Agency and the smart innovation support of the EU Commission.
While CB Insights listed already in July 2019 AeroEnterprise as one of the “30+ Startups Driving Innovation in Offshore Wind”, our survey and white paper did not only prove the advantages drones have in wind turbine inspections but also showed that AeroEnterprise had already a gained reputation in the market and was considered to be one the leading companies in this new industry segment.
Shortly after the publication of our white paper one of the largest offshore services companies in Europe, the German BUSS Energy Group, acquired a 24.9% stake of AeroEnterprise as a strategic investment in this future technology in wind turbine inspection.
Why?
Wind Turbine Inspection is a multi-billion market
Services are at the core of future value creation in wind energy ...
Just recently, Christian Bruch, Siemens Energy’s President and CEO, revealed that the service business is one of their key profit contributors and a key focus area of their R&D activities and that they have the ambition to expand their digital offerings.
(Source: Siemens Energy, Capital Markets Day, September 1, 2020)
You understand this immediately when you look into the numbers: Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (SGRE) has service revenues of 1.6 billion Euros, which is nearly 17% of their total revenues, and a service backlog of 12 billion Euros.
Well, you don't need a calculator to extrapolate from the Siemens figures what size and importance the wind turbine inspection market will have in the future. Especially, when it comes to predictive maintenance and valuation of assets there are vast untapped market opportunities that require and build on the data generated by drones.
... and highly profitable
So, one thing is clear: wind turbine inspection is a highly profitable business and a fast growing market.
However, wind turbine OEMs still focus on a "traditional" approach on service and maintenance and have no holistic view or vision on how to develop an innovative and integrated approach to provide valuable service offerings to their customers. Furthermore, due to the actual damage claims they are facing, the intention to come up with data that provides a clear picture of the damage and allows to understand the root cause is not in their own interest.
So while the giants are asleep and ignore or neglect the opportunities of drone inspections, it is the time for the young innovative companies to stake their claims.
What does it take to become a unicorn?
First and foremost: an innovation that results in a novel and superior technology in combination with a smart business model that supports or allows for commercialisation.
In wind turbine inspection it is clear that customers are interested in the information/data to understand the actual situation and status of their assets and to support their decision making with respect to service and maintenance as well as end-of-life/repowering decision-making.
The future will show that, while wind turbines will become a commodity, the information on the performance of wind park locations in combination with the wind turbines installed will shape the wind energy industry more than another MW of turbine power output. Furthermore, reliability and durability of wind turbines can be benchmarked agains their costs and performance.
We are curious
So, we are curious how drone inspections will transform the wind energy industry and how companies like AeroEnterprise and the innovative technologies and business models invented by them will develop - into the next Unicorn?