Papertrail’s Cloud-Based O&M Business Gains Momentum

Papertrail, a provider of cloud-based inspection management and data capture technology for the wind energy industry, has informed that it won several new contracts last year and that it sees further growth as its platform is being used increasingly for operations and maintenance (O&M) in both on- and offshore wind.

“Since entering the renewable energy sector in 2015 we have noticed a significant increase in the use of our platform, for not only things such as PPE inspection management, but also for recording and reporting on turbine and site inspections, both on and offshore,” Papertrail CEO Ben Scholes said.

“We’ve invested heavily into both our technology and our commitment to the renewable energy sector and are now beginning to see returns on this investment, whilst also provided value to our customers through time and man hour cost savings. We’re seeing growth for Papertrail within the sector and are expecting a busy couple of years ahead,” Scholes added.

The North Wales-based software company says it currently has contracts with several well known clients within the sector, leaving the client names undisclosed, but revealing that the users of the Papertrail platform are large operators, developers, as well as smaller contractors.

According to the case studies listed on Papertrail’s website, the Gwynt y Môr offshore wind farm is one those utilising the software for planning wind turbine inspections.

The company states that its global platform contributes to both efficient and cost-effective operations and maintenance.

Namely, the platform makes inspection updates from technicians available in real time to allow ‘on the fly’ decision making to be carried out by managers at base locations, so reducing potential downtime, allowing issues to be resolved in some cases, on the same day. Furthermore, it replaces the traditional paper or PDF checklists previously used by technicians, and stores the data in the Cloud, which is then accessible for all time, to whoever may need it in the future.

Capturing inspection data now, will enable more meaningful reporting and forecasting in the years to come, all contributing to driving down the lifetime costs of wind projects throughout the world, Papertrail says.