SABCA and DEME Offshore enter in a partnership to deploy drone inspection services for offshore wind farms

04-03-2019 Member news

SABCA, a leading tier 1 aerospace industry supplier and DEME Offshore, a worldwide leader in solutions and services for the offshore energy market, have entered into a partnership for the development and deployment of Unmanned Vehicles to perform surveillance and inspection works in the offshore industry

Complementing each other’s core experience and know-how, both companies are convinced that these innovative, advanced technologies have a game-changing potential to increase health and safety of their employees, lower the impact on the environment in the O&M phase of a project, and reduce the overall costs of these operations.

Moreover, in the future, it is expected that unmanned vehicles will continue to contribute significantly to lower the Levelized Cost of Energy.

“The DEME/SABCA partnership is a powerful combination, which is perfectly in line with our permanent search for strong technology partners. DEME’s understanding of marine technology and engineering expertise is uniquely complementary to SABCA’s drone developments for industrial applications in accordance with the highest safety and security aerospace standards. We believe this partnership helps to generate leading technology products and services for the offshore industry”, said Thibauld Jongen, CEO of the SABCA Group.

“We work closely with our renewable energy customers to offer reliable and cost efficient maintenance and repair solutions for their offshore assets. By adding drone services to our solutions we can provide detailed and highly accurate inspection data, while further increasing safety and reducing downtime and costs,” says Luc Vandenbulcke, CEO of DEME. “More accurate data results in shorter response times, better availability and a higher electricity output. Also, as offshore wind turbines are getting bigger, the industry needs maintenance partners that can follow this trend. We look forward to joining forces with SABCA and to combine our know-how and experience in the offshore renewables market.”

About SABCA
SABCA is a tier 1 worldwide leading multi-technology aerospace supplier. Serving the world’s leading aircraft and space launchers manufacturers, SABCA designs, develops, manufactures and maintains aircraft and launcher components and systems. The company asserts its expertise in 4 business units – Integrated Assemblies, Actuation Systems, MRO and Unmanned Systems, and achieved a turnover of 217 million euros in 2017. SABCA’s Unmanned Systems Business Unit builds on the experience gained since 1920 to offer a range of services such as drone design, payload and systems integration, ground- and flight testing, drone qualification and certification, operations and inspection, maintenance, and repair activities. The company, which is listed on the Euronext stock market (EBR: SAB), conducts operations in the three Belgian regions and has one facility in Morocco.