03 March 2022
At Althen we provide confidence for visionary engineers. Besides studying and their work at Althen, two of our young engineers visualized a growing need for automation in the inspection, repair and maintenance of the increasing number of wind turbines.
One round from a Haliade-X 12 MW wind turbine produces about 20 kWh of energy during these six seconds. An average household uses about 7.5 kWh per day (2730 kWh per year). Currently, 2% of the time (approximately one week per year) a turbine is not in use due to malfunction, maintenance and service. Wouldn't it be great if we could predict and reduce this downtime better? That repair work can be planned more functionally in periods of forced downtime due to insufficient wind?
The innovative Bladesense solution for wind turbines
Over the past few months, our Development Engineer, Martijn Brummelhuis, and Software Engineer, Andreas Verbruggen, had frequent discussions with lots of people in the wind energy industry. Each time their vision was confirmed that there is a growing need regarding inspection, monitoring and predictable maintenance of wind turbines. In addition most European countries have very ambitious future growth plans for wind energy on land and at sea. Bladesense wants to anticipate this by building a robot, which by means of various sensors will be perfectly capable of assessing the current state of a wind turbine. This makes it easier to manage defaults, maintenance and service of wind turbines.
How Althen wants to support Bladesense
Enthusiastic management, vision, ideals, know-how, and of course a beautiful combination of sensor, robot and computer technology. After a fantastic pitch Althen's management of Althen was immediately impressed by the entire Bladesense project. Soon the idea arose to start to a nice cooperation. Bladesense will use the facilities and office of Althen. There will also be additional support for the project by in the form of coaching by management and various employees.
How Althen wants to support Bladesense
Enthusiastic management, vision, ideals, know-how, and of course a beautiful combination of sensor, robot and computer technology. After a fantastic pitch Althen's management of Althen was immediately impressed by the entire Bladesense project. Soon the idea arose to start to a nice cooperation. Bladesense will use the facilities and office of Althen. There will also be additional support for the project by in the form of coaching by management and various employees.
Already award winning
Recently, there was also a pitch in the finals of Ready to Startup. This is an intensive course given by consultancy firm Roland Berger, startup incubator YES!Delft and TU Delft. In the finals, Bladesense did not only win the audience award, but also an individual jury prize and the grand overall prize. Because of the our relationship, the grand prize has now been given a nice spot at the office Althen office of Althen.In the coming period the time will be divided between studying, work at Althen IoT, and of course further build on Bladesense. Soon a third member will join the team and be visiting the Althen office.