In a previous blog post, we examined the Inevitability of Digital Transformation and how it is changing the world around us at an accelerated pace.
We started the conversation with highlights on The Digital Transformation of Smart Facilities and The Digital Transformation of Smart Process Industries and examined the impact of digital transformation being seen in both the Foodservice and Process Industries.
In the final installment our new video series, which features the Presidents of each mCloud line of business, we chat with Dave Weinerth (President, Smart Energy) on how digital transformation is impacting the wind industry.
The wind industry, in regards to how they see digital transformation is really interesting. Wind turbines are in hard environments, they’re complex machines that spin-off a lot of data into hundreds of different channels and operators are just now getting a chance to delve into what can be done with that data with some of the tools that are available in the cloud, through artificial intelligence and additional sensors that they may want to put onto their machines to assess different aspects of performance.
Traditionally, wind operators would have teams repel from ropes to inspect blades, take pictures and assess performance. Drones now allow us to get up and close, take pictures of each of the four sides of the turbine. This is now done in 30 minutes as opposed to shutting down a turbine for an entire day. The introduction of AI has allowed for the traditional process of analysts combing through images to be optimized into a streamlined effort that is completed within seconds and within a day we can produce the same reports to allow repair activities to begin.
Our customers within the Wind segment utilize AssetCare, first through a connection to their data streams, creation of virtual models and then monitoring those actual data streams to help the customer understand what their performance could be in the form of a digital twin. AssetCare is able to give them actionable recommendations based on what their turbine is actually doing day in and day out.
