how the capability of
DRONES aids farms & energy
By MARTHA BLUM – AgriNews Publications
P
iloting a drone was one of numerous activities students had the opportunity to experience during the NIU STEM Fest 2021. The event, held on the campus of Northern Illinois University, celebrates science, technology, engineering and math with hands-on activities, exhibits and talks. Drones have been utilized by the Enel Green Power company for several years. “We’ve started experimenting with drones in 2016 and they have been a component in our
operations and maintenance since 2018,” said Bill Badnaruk, drone specialist for Enel Green Power. Badnaruk conducted a drone demonstration in a special cage area during the NIU event. “We use drones in our solar and wind operations and we also use them in the engineering and construction phase,” Badnaruk said. “One of unique things we do is crop damage assessments when we’re building roads for the wind installations,” he said. “We catalog how much crop damage occurs to make sure the land owners are
10 | DeKalb County AG MAG | Fall 2021
appropriately credited.” Thermal cameras on the drones are used to find problems on solar panels. “The thermal camera can easily see outages, bad cells or any issue we have on a solar farm,” Badnaruk said. “We can see what’s going on at the site faster and more efficiently with a drone.” For wind systems, Badnaruk said, drones are used for spot inspections. “The wind turbine blades can crack, so we use the drones to catch that early to make repairs,” he said. “We want
to make sure our assets are running as safe as possible.” Finding inefficiencies with the drone cameras helps to make the company’s sites more reliable to produce additional energy for a longer time. “If one of the wind turbine blades suffers damage or is out of balance, that will affect everything attached to the wind blade such as the bearing system or the generator,” Badnaruk said. “And that will accelerate wear and other issues.” The engineering team for the company uses drones for mapping.
