Electric Cargo Drones Take Off for Faster, Cleaner Offshore Wind Maintenance
Our new project Pilot-CD
Offshore wind farms are located far from shore, making maintenance logistics complex, expensive, and emission-intensive. Today, tools and spare parts are mainly transported by Service Operation Vessels (SOVs), Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs), and sometimes helicopters. Maintenance teams often lose 1.5 to 3 hours per turbine visit just moving materials from the vessel up to the nacelle. To address these delays and reduce downtime, the Pilot-CD project will assess the operational value of battery-electric cargo drones for offshore wind farm maintenance, building on the earlier PRIMA-CD pilot carried out in 2024 by TNO, Ampelmann, and Vattenfall, which proved technical feasibility but left the business case still to be validated.
Pilot-CD will run real-world operational trials using a cargo drone capable of carrying up to 100 kilograms over distances of up to 7 kilometres, operating from SOVs to deliver and retrieve equipment both for planned maintenance logistics and urgent, unplanned requests. The pilot will take place in two phases: three months at Vattenfall’s Dantysk/Sandbank wind farm, followed by two months at another offshore site, potentially with a different use case such as commissioning. By collecting detailed performance data and comparing results with current logistics practices, the project aims to quantify time savings, CO₂ reductions, cost benefits, and improvements in turbine availability. Ultimately, delivering a scalable, proven logistics concept and a robust decision-making framework for commercial rollout across multiple wind farms.
