Vertikal AI aims to simplify renewable energy asset management so that less can do more for the planet. Wind energy plays a pivotal role in the transition towards a society powered by renewable energy, but the cost and risk of operating a wind farm must come down.
Vertikal AI’s core product is an AI platform for wind turbine drivetrain condition monitoring, using online data streams from vibration sensor systems. The business of condition monitoring is about delivering early warning on mechanical faults, so that maintenance operations and repair costs can be minimized. Early and robust fault detection also reduces unplanned downtime, and thereby lost power production.
Vibration-based condition monitoring has been the go-to technology for the last two decades in the wind industry, and there are more than 150.000 wind turbines with online sensor systems installed on the gearbox, generator and main bearings. However, the related analysis task is extremely manual and requires highly specialized engineers. Vertikal’s innovative AI technology solves this problem by automating a large part of the manual parts of condition monitoring, enabling 10x monitoring efficiency while producing significantly earlier warnings than a human can achieve. However, to build an effective AI-based fault detection system, we needed to overcome the lack of training data and a high level of data disparity.
Project AI-train sought to overcome this by researching technology that can enable AI models that work across different sensor system brands, measurement configurations, turbine and component brands. Vertikal AI software is installed on more than 5GW of wind power capacity globally. The research scope included 4 different sensor system brands, 17 different turbine models, and more than 100 unique drivetrains configurations. Building AI for such a diverse fleet would have been extremely difficult without the technology research in project AI-TRAIN. The Innovation Associate has now been hired permanently, and the research output has become part of the core operating model at Vertikal AI.
Vertikal AI was acquired by SkySpecs in April 2021, and the advanced AI technology researched in project AI-train is now part of Horizon CMS – Read more here.
