What a utility asks for before a contractor can work at its wind farm

In this business the technology is not the barrier. Drones can be bought, so can cleaning rigs, and there are operators in several European countries doing something similar. We are not going to pretend otherwise.

What cannot be solved in six months is getting into the site of a major utility.

The real filter

Before a contractor touches a machine at a utility owned wind farm, it has to clear a prequalification process that reviews, as a minimum:

• Health and safety. Prevention plan, risk assessment for the specific activity, accredited training for the personnel involved and suitability of the work equipment.
• Insurance. Public liability cover with adequate limits, plus evidence of being current with social security and tax obligations.
• Technical and financial standing. Accounts, demonstrable experience on comparable work and the capacity to take on the campaign.
• Individual documentation for every person. In drone operations that means a file per pilot: accreditation, training, medical certification and traceability.
• Contractor coordination. Every document uploaded to whatever platform the client uses, and kept current ahead of each site entry.

None of these points is exotic. All of them together, at the documentary standard of a large utility, is a process measured in months.

Why this matters more than it looks

An O&M manager who wants to trial drone cleaning meets a market split in two.

On one side, drone operators who are technically capable but have never cleared an industrial contractor prequalification. Hiring them means the supplier onboarding process starts from zero, and that process is not run by the O&M manager: it is run by procurement and safety, on their timescales.

On the other, prequalified industrial contractors who do not do this work.

The value of having cleared the process is not the certificate. It is that the campaign can be planned for this quarter rather than the next one.

Where we stand

Eolinet is prequalified as a contractor for a major Iberian utility. The process was completed before the first intervention on site, and the file is kept live: health and safety, insurance, pilot certificates and financial standing documentation ready to submit to any supplier onboarding.

That file gets reused. It is the part of the work you do once and then carry to the next client, and it is why we can enter another company's prequalification process without treating it as a project in itself.

If you are evaluating us as a supplier

Say so in the first contact and we will send the full file before talking about price. It is faster for both sides: if something does not meet your company's requirements, better to know before a quote is prepared.

We also work as a subcontractor to manufacturers and service providers who already hold the relationship with the site. In that case their prequalification is the one that counts, we supply the documentation for our part, and the end client does not change point of contact.