British wind energy software development firm Onyx Insight has launched a new turbine blade condition monitoring system (CMS) called ecoBlade that it says provides “continuous visibility and analysis of blade behaviour and health”.
Onyx Insight, which was acquired by Macquarie Capital in early 2024, is one of the leading providers of wind turbine performance analytics and condition-based monitoring to the wind energy industry.
Building on this reputation, Onyx Insight on Monday announced the launch of its new CMS, ecoBlade, which provides continuous monitoring of health from within each individual blade.
EcoBlade consists of two 3-axis accelerometer sensors per blade and is capable of detecting cracks, structural faults, and other damaging issues including short-lived and high-energy events.
The information provided alerts owners and operators to issues weeks and sometimes months before they can escalate into something more damaging and potentially catastrophic.
Importantly, this early detection of even minor issues means owners and operators can identify an issue while an up-tower repair is still a viable option, avoiding more expensive repair situations such as complete blade or turbine replacements.
By providing continuous monitoring of blade behaviour, ecoBlade can provide insights into blade dynamics and behaviour, fatigue and lifetime extension, and blade-specific conditions that might be causing damage, all of which helps to prevent minor issues escalating into potential blade failures, losses, full turbine collapse, or even whole-site shutdowns.
According to Onyx Insight, ecoBlade’s early detection can provide users with 10 to 100-times cost savings – and potentially higher for offshore wind turbines, and all within a very short period of time.
For example, replacing a turbine blade can cost anywhere between $US300,000 to $US500,000, while a complete turbine replacement can exceed $US5 million. Even indirect costs such as the impact of business interruption can average around $US100,000 per day in lost revenue.
And with wind turbines growing larger and blade designs beginning to push against engineering margins, the complexity and cost of blade failures is escalating. In the United States alone, for example, blade maintenance exceeded $US1 billion in 2025.
“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,” said Alexis Grenon, CEO of Onyx Insight.
“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’s continuous internal monitoring is a significant step up from the traditional annual drone inspections which can only see what’s visible externally, and generally only while the turbine is stationary.
With the most costly and dangerous blade failures often occurring out of sight, and lengthy intervals between drone inspections, many failures that develop over a short period of time often go undetected, meaning operators miss the opportunity to make early and more affordable repairs.
“Drivetrain condition monitoring has become an industry standard over the last decade, proven to reduce O&M costs and increase turbine availability,” said Grenon.
“Blade CMS is now on the same trajectory and the technology is ready.
“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: maximise the productive life of every blade, on every turbine, across entire fleets.”
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