{{ content.logo.text }}

  • {{searchSuggestions.title}}

Aerones & Enel Green Power growth through RoBoost Program

Aerones & Enel Green Power growth through RoBoost Program

Latvian startup Aerones is the first company in the world that’s able to provide maintenance for wind turbines using automated technology and robotics. After closing $30M funding round, signed a 6M€ Global Framework Agreement to deploy, through the flagship RoBoost Program, robotized services across the EGP global Wind fleet.

{{item.title}}

There has been an evolution with that objective in mind: from 40 meters in 1990, to 80 meters in 2000, to 145 meters in 2015. The higher the turbines, the more power they generate and, therefore, the more efficient they are. But this leads to maintenance challenge as reaching the blades is harder and, above all, riskier for operators.

The Latvian startup Aerones began thinking about how to solve the challenge      of wind turbine maintenance in 2015, and now it is focused on advanced automated wind turbine maintenance systems. It has become the first company in the world that’s able to provide such maintenance services using automated technology. Its solution is directly related to sustainability and renewable energy. This is completely in line with Innovability® and the reason why we are working together on this objective.

Robotics caring for blades and the planet

Aerones started as a drone company that investigated cleaning opportunities in the wind turbine industry, but it soon realized that it was focusing on the wrong technology and in 2019 it switched to a robotic system. ""In the beginning, we thought that drones will be technology to do services for wind turbines, however, after a period of testing we understood that drone technology is suitable only for inspection purposes. Since the very beginning, we knew that turbines require not only inspections but also efficient maintenance services, so we came up with a technology that can do it all. We developed a tailor-made robotic technology based on a winch system that is able to provide precise, safe, high-speed and exceptional quality services for our customer wind turbines." explains Aerones’s co-founder Dainis Kruze.

The start-up was scouted by the Enel Innovation Hub Europe in 2018 and the first connection was established during the Enel Green Power Bootcamp later that year. After the innovation funnel developed together with Innovation department of Enel Green Power, the first activities on field were performed on real O&M context in 2021 and today

Aerones has secured $30 million in growth capital to scale its business globally. The capital will be used to help the Company meet surging demand in a market which is expected to reach $50 billion in value by 2028.

Through this further support, it is revolutionizing the normally complex and costly process of inspecting, maintaining and repairing global wind power capacity. Aerones’ robot-enabled solutions are up to six times faster, 40 percent more efficient, and much safer than conventional solutions, which involve certified rope access technicians who are slower, in short supply, and unable to operate in poor weather conditions. 

{{item.title}}

RoBoost Program

RoBoost Program is Enel Green Power flagship program for large deployment of ready-to-market robotized technologies for O&M activities, mainly on Wind and Solar plants, leveraging on entire value-chain in order to increase allocation of people on added value activities always with sustainability focus and also economic savings. 

In 2022 we have deployed 16k robotized activities with generation of added value activities for all our stakeholders through different use cases, from drones inspections up to grass cutting robots and smart glasses activities passing through also robotized maintenance on Wind Turbine Generators and internal robotized inspections in blades where Aerones represents one of our key partners.

Fabio Bosatelli, Head of Automation & Robotics, declares: ‘RoBoost Program is confirming with facts and activities on field that robotization is really sustainable and fully integrated in business-as-usual generating added value for all our stakeholders for a total 15k hours on added value activities thanks to robotized activities. The forecast is an average 95% of year-over-year growth about robotized activities and we are establishing collaboration with different companies who are leading this new sector’.

Bosatelli and Kruze recalls that "now EGP and Aerones have signed 6M€ Global Framework Agreement to deploy in all EGP countries and over Wind fleet these robotized service always maintaining the right focus on Innovation, supporting both the companies needs and the AERONES growth and localization across the world”.