‘Largest Drone Cargo Delivery Programme Ever Done Outside Military’ Underway at UK Offshore Wind Farms

Ørsted and the UK-based drone operator Skylift have launched what Ørsted says is the largest drone delivery programme ever attempted to offshore wind sites, with over 550 flights to more than 400 turbines at four UK offshore wind farms: Hornsea One and Hornsea Two on the east coast, and Walney 1 & 2 on the west coast.

According to the offshore wind developer, this is the largest programme of drone offshore equipment deliveries that has ever been done outside the military. It is also the first time that drones have been used for a delivery programme of this magnitude so far offshore, where turbines are up to 120 kilometres out at sea, according to Ørsted.

The two companies are using the FlyingBasket heavy-lift cargo drones to transport boxes of critical safety evacuation equipment, which weigh up to 70 kilogrammes, from a ship to the nacelle at the top of each wind turbine at a height of more than 100 metres.

“Normally to deliver heavy loads like this, it would require two crane-lifting operations to get the box to the top of the turbine. It would also take 3 people and means shutting the turbine down for up to 6 hours, so we could only deliver one box a day”, said Nina F. Le, who is heading the project for Ørsted’s team.

“Delivery by drone takes no technicians from their scheduled work, we can leave the turbines running which means no lost power generation and each takes around. 5 minutes which has meant we’ve been able to achieve up to 30 deliveries a day.”

Ørsted has been using smaller drones for inspections of the turbines and has carried out several cargo drone projects so far, but not on a large scale like this.

In 2022, Ørsted and the transport and logistics company DSV teamed up to carry out tests with the transport of spare parts and tools using long-distance freight drones at Anholt offshore wind farm in Denmark.

The following year, the developer announced that it became “the first offshore wind company in the world” to use giant autonomous drones to transport cargo to wind turbines, after launching a project with Skylift at Hornsea One.

Last year, Ørsted deployed heavy-lift cargo drones for maintenance work at the Borssele 1&2 offshore wind farm in the Netherlands, marking the first time these kinds of drones were being used in an operational campaign after the concept was tested in 2023 at the Hornsea One offshore wind farm in the UK.