ONYX Insight Cuts Wind Farm Costs with Ecoblade

ONYX Insight launched Ecoblade, a new condition monitoring system (CMS) providing continuous visibility and analysis of blade behavior and health, unlocking millions in savings for wind farm owners and operators worldwide in April.

Ecoblade provides continuous monitoring of health from within an individual blade. With two 3-axis accelerometer sensors per blade, it can detect cracks, structural faults, and other damaging behavior early – even short-lived and high-energy events. This information provides owners and operators with vital and early intelligence to address issues weeks or months before they escalate into something potentially catastrophic.  

This early detection provides users with 10–100x cost savings – potentially higher for offshore turbines – within a very short period. Some costs are relatively straightforward to calculate, such as a $300k–$500k blade replacement, or a complete turbine replacement, which can exceed $5m. Indirect costs include the impact of business interruption, which can average around $100k per day in lost revenue.  

Alexis Grenon, CEO of ONYX Insight, said: “For too long, blade management has been defined by what operators find out too late – damage that’s already progressed beyond the point of targeted repair. Ecoblade changes that fundamentally, giving teams continuous intelligence from inside the blade itself so they can act at the point when intervention is still feasible, targeted, and dramatically less costly.”

Ecoblade is able to detect even minor issues before they are allowed to escalate to potential blade failures, losses, full turbine collapse, or even whole-site shutdowns. By continuously analyzing blade behavior and health, the system gives operators the intelligence to run smarter and better-informed operations that prevent damage by providing insights into blade dynamics and behavior, fatigue and lifetime extension, and blade-specific conditions causing damage.

Ecoblade identifies damage at the point when an up-tower repair is still viable – enabling operators to shift from reactive inspections to predictive maintenance powered by real-time alerts.

As wind turbines grow larger and blade designs push further against engineering margins, the complexity and cost of blade failures is increasing. In the US alone, blade maintenance exceeded $1 billion in 2025 for the first time according to Intelstor – and that figure is growing. Blades are composite structures where manufacturing variability, operational age, and environmental conditions all contribute to internal defects that can escalate into structural failures with little external warning.

Currently, blade health monitoring is typically focused on annual drone inspections. While advances in drone technology have made these efficient at identifying slow-developing defects, there are a number of several limitations. Drones can only see what’s visible externally, and generally only while the turbine is not in operation. Equally, the most costly and dangerous blade failures often occur out of sight.

Lengthy intervals between drone inspections mean that failures developing over a short period of time frequently go undetected. This means operators miss the opportunity to make low-cost, targeted repairs before they escalate.

Structural degradation deep within the blade, subsurface cracking, and bond-line failures are invisible until they’ve already become problematic and expensive. Combining drone technology with Ecoblade provides thorough tracking of both internal and external blade conditions, giving wind farm owners and operators added comfort through a comprehensive and real-time view of individual and site-wide blade health.  

“Drivetrain condition monitoring has become an industry standard over the last decade, proven to reduce O&M costs and increase turbine availability. Blade CMS is now on the same trajectory and the technology is ready,” Grenon continues. “Every year, tens of thousands of new turbines are being installed around the world, and the sector continues to assert itself as a key source of clean energy. The scale of investment at risk makes intelligent asset protection a commercial necessity for businesses in the wind industry. Ecoblade was created to do exactly that: maximize the productive life of every blade, on every turbine, across entire fleets.”

Recently, ONYX Insight received the Technical Innovation Award for Ecoblade at the Wind Investment Awards in London. The award reflects o continued commitment to advancing predictive maintenance, data analytics and digital transformation across the global wind industry.

Now in its 7th year, the Wind Investment Awards recognize best practice across the wind industry as it transitions to a zero-subsidy future, spanning project development, technological advancement and financial excellence. The 2026 ceremony brought together more than 200 of the industry’s top decision-makers, with winners selected by a panel of over 20 expert judges. ONYX Insight received the Technical Innovation Award for Ecoblade. The award reflects their continued commitment to advancing predictive maintenance, data analytics and digital transformation across the global wind industry.

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