French energy leader EDF Renewables France has equipped its asset managers working across all their wind assets with fieldPRO, an advanced cloud-based inspection and service tool from ONYX InSight, a leading provider of data analytics and engineering expertise to the global wind industry. This follows the partnership with EDF Renewables North America for ONYX InSight’s Condition Monitoring solutions, including cloud-based system fleetMONITOR and retro-fit ecoCMS hardware installations.
The deal, initially for three years, covers all 1,675 MW of EDF Renewables’ wind assets in France and is a first for the French wind market, further strengthening ONYX InSight’s footprint in Europe. The use of fieldPRO circumvents the need for paper-based solutions, enabling EDF Renewables France’s asset managers to digitally document and automate the inspection process, streamlining image categorization with indexed photos and auto-generated reports.
The application’s cloud capability enables instant data sharing in a clean, consistent format, improving the availability, usability, and accuracy of the inspection and survey data. Inspection data is key to enabling successful, long term predictive maintenance strategies. Traditional offline inspections, despite delivering valuable information on turbine health, are often siloed and filed away on paper, making it difficult to access and extract insights; fieldPRO automatically stores and organizes inspection information in a digital format, resulting in improved oversight and better decision making.
The fieldPRO tool also provides critical health and safety support by enabling remote inspections and validation of procedures, particularly around personal protective equipment, which helps to ensure safety for technicians on site. More broadly, fieldPRO provides a useful checklist for on-site personnel, supporting safe working best practices and ensuring nothing is missed.
ONYX InSight worked with EDF Renewables France to tailor the interface of the software platform to specifically support and align with its requirements.
“FieldPRO has a huge potential to improve the way we work by setting best practices and automating a lot of our procedures,” said Soraya Zobiri, asset manager for EDF Renewables France. “Our journey to provide clean energy at the lowest cost is ultimately driven by efficiency gains, and we are confident that, by partnering with ONYX InSight, we will continue to deliver ever-more affordable clean energy.”
“We know from years of experience that the reality of collecting inspection data and managing field operations can be complex and time consuming,” said Keiran Knowles, business development manager Northern Europe for ONYX InSight. “Our fieldPRO tool allows operators greater oversight of this crucial part of operations and maintenance, while removing the burden from technicians having to spend valuable time in sorting through hundreds of inspection points and photos and writing laborious reports. Instead, this technology facilitates scheduling and workorder assignment, while streamlining data collection for improved planning, safety, and logistics.”
“Adopting mobile digitization tools unlocks the most accurate data analytics yet,” he said. “Inspection data is the next frontier in the complete digitalization of the global wind fleet, and we are proud to support pioneers such as EDF Renewables France as they continue to drive down the cost of producing clean energy.”
More info www.onyxinsight.com
M
