Watch this space to cut the cost of renewables

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR), which is carried on spacecraft such as Europe’s Sentinel-1, can detect slight movements of just a few millimetres.

Energy companies could use it for the structural monitoring of offshore wind turbines, detecting fallen pylons in remote regions and identifying sites for turbines, according to academics at the University of Strathclyde.

It could also improve the efficiency of network monitoring at a time of growing global demand for energy, help reduce energy costs, and support the cost of using the technology in humanitarian programmes.

“A lot of what we are looking at doing, trying to talk with the energy sector, is really to say to them ‘Here are things that are already happening and being used elsewhere,’ and taking proven technologies and applying them to different challenges,” said Dr Malcolm Macdonald, director of the Scottish Centre of Excellence in Satellite Applications at the University of Strathclyde.

SAR uses the motion of its antenna over a target region to provide finer spatial resolution than is possible with conventional beam-scanning radars. It is usually mounted on a moving platform such as a spacecraft or aircraft.