Adelaide’s Ping sells ice detection system to the Nordics

We have all heard of the proverbial selling of ice cream to Eskimos, well, now Adelaide acoustics monitoring company Ping is poised to sell ice monitoring systems to Nordic countries.

The company’s Ice Detection System monitors (pictured) are designed to help wind turbine operators conserve energy and save money by listening in for the tell tale sounds of ice build up on turbine blades.

Atmospheric icing on blades is an important issue due to its negative impact on energy production – in severe cases 30 per cent of energy is lost in a year.

Ping’s Ice Detection System monitors the acoustics from the wind turbine blades to detect early icing, reduce risks and prevent damages.

Ping CEO Matthew Stead said: “We discovered that wind turbine blades have an acoustic signature — if there is ice build-up on the blades then the acoustic signature changes which can be heard by our Ping Monitor.

“So we developed the Ping Monitor, a world-first device that continuously monitors the sound of wind turbine blades to detect and notify any damage in real-time, using advanced acoustic analysis.”

There are 10,000’s of wind turbines around the world that don’t have sensitive ice detection systems, and so are susceptible to being shut down and to high ice loads.

The Ping Monitor is self-contained using solar power, easy to install and simple to operate, according to Stead.

It is attached magnetically to the turbine tower base in less than one minute and once installed, immediately starts measuring the sound generated by the blades as they rotate.

Data is simultaneously transmitted to the cloud which can be reviewed and analysed in near real-time from any device remotely by wind turbine operators.

Ping’s Ice Detection System is a software upgrade to the standard Ping system which continuously monitors blade damage, significantly reducing maintenance costs by 25 to 30 per cent over the life of the turbine, minimising catastrophic blade failures which can cost up to $10 million, and improving overall wind turbine performance.

Today, Ping has 600 installations of Ping Monitors on wind turbines in 15 countries.

Picture: Ping

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