GrowindCheck: the wind turbine inspection app that turns field data into action
Anyone who has climbed a tower with a notebook, a camera, and a half-finished spreadsheet knows the real problem: it’s not inspecting a wind turbine, it’s what happens to that information afterward. Loose photos in a folder, data that reaches the office too late, severity criteria that change depending on who wrote the report. For an industry that depends on availability and contractual traceability, that friction has a real cost.
GrowindCheck, Growind Systems’ mobile wind turbine inspection app, was built to close exactly that gap between the field and the decision. It isn’t a generic form-builder app: it’s designed specifically for wind turbine inspection and for operation and maintenance (O&M) workflows in wind farms.
GrowindCheck: the wind turbine inspection app for wind O&M
It’s a mobile application, available for Android and iOS, built for three concrete uses in the daily operation of a wind farm:
- Collecting technical information directly in the field, with photos and structured data captured at the moment of inspection.
- Ensuring that a maintenance instruction is carried out correctly, step by step.
- Ensuring that a critical job is completed in the exact required order, without skipping steps.
This three-way function is what sets GrowindCheck apart from a simple digital form: it doesn’t just record data, it standardizes the inspection process and reduces human error in operations where a skipped step can have safety or warranty consequences.
Built for real wind farm conditions
One of the app’s most important design decisions is that it works in offline mode. Anyone who has worked at the base of a tower or inside a nacelle knows that network coverage is, at best, intermittent. The app lets technicians complete full inspections without a connection and sync the data afterward — including images in maximum quality — as soon as the device regains a stable signal.This makes GrowindCheck a reliable wind turbine inspection app even without coverage, so technicians never have to worry about losing completed work or submitting incomplete data due to a lack of connection.
Smart templates: procedure, sequence, and a dedicated library
GrowindCheck relies on a tree-structured template system, with groups of questions and clearly flagged mandatory fields. But what’s interesting isn’t just the structure — it’s the logic behind two types of templates:
Procedure templates, which ensure every required point is completed before the report can be finalized. Ideal for inspection checklists where an incomplete review simply can’t be accepted.
Sequence templates, designed for critical operations where the order of execution matters as much as the content itself. If a maintenance procedure requires locking out first, then inspecting, and finally releasing, the sequence template enforces that exact order.
On top of that, customers get access to Growind’s template library, which includes validated formats for general wind turbine inspection, post-preventive-maintenance quality checks, defect reporting, and borescope inspections, among others. And when a use case calls for it, Growind also develops fully custom templates tailored to the client.
Collaborative work between two technicians
One of the app’s most advanced features is the ability for two users to complete the same report at the same time from different devices. A PRIMARY user starts the template, fills in the asset identification data (wind farm, wind turbine), and shares the report via a QR code with a SECONDARY user, who simply scans the code to link into the same report.
This feature solves a very common scenario in larger-scale inspections: two technicians working in parallel — for example, one in the nacelle and another at the base of the tower — without duplicating forms or risking inconsistent data. The system clearly defines priority rules: the primary user is responsible for answering all mandatory questions, and if both users answer the same question, the primary user’s answer prevails.
Visual evidence capture and multiple records
The app lets technicians capture images directly from the device at the moment of inspection — it doesn’t allow uploading photos from the gallery, precisely to guarantee that the evidence matches the exact time and place of the review. In addition, for questions that require it, the technician can add as many records as needed: for example, reporting several different defects found on the same component, each with its own description, severity, and photo.
This ability to generate multiple records per question is key for blade, gearbox, or electrical system inspections, where it’s rare to find just a single isolated issue.
From field inspection to actionable data: integration with GrowindCloud
This is where GrowindCheck goes beyond being just a field app and becomes part of a broader asset management ecosystem. All the information collected — photos, severity levels, technical comments, the exact location of the defect within the wind turbine — syncs with GrowindCloud, Growind Systems’ platform for monitoring and managing wind and solar assets.
Within GrowindCloud, that data feeds modules like the Health Matrix, which generates reports filtered by wind turbine, system or subsystem, type of non-conformity, inspection technique, or severity level, in a matter of seconds. In other words: what a technician reports in the field automatically becomes structured, comparable, and exportable evidence for O&M decision-making, with no need to manually transcribe paper reports or consolidate scattered PDFs.
This connection is especially valuable in processes such as end-of-warranty or end-of-contract assessments, where the strength and traceability of the technical evidence can determine the outcome of a negotiation with the manufacturer or the O&M contractor.
Use cases for a wind turbine inspection app
The versatility of the tool translates into very concrete applications within wind farm operations:
Periodic visual inspections of the tower, nacelle, rotor, and blades, following standardized checklists by component. Borescope inspections of the gearbox and main bearing, with structured photo records and severity classification. Defect reporting during preventive or corrective maintenance, with immediate photographic evidence. End-of-warranty or end-of-contract processes, where the app allows systematic collection of non-conformities that later become negotiation arguments. Collaborative inspections for operations that require two technicians working simultaneously on different parts of the wind turbine.
Real case: from hours in Word to instant reports
One of our clients, a large electric utility that prefers to remain anonymous, is a good example of the leap that comes with digitizing inspections through GrowindCheck.
Their previous process was entirely manual. Supervisors carried out inspections in the field and took photos with regular cameras or phones. The real work began once back at the office: inserting and adjusting each photo, one by one, into a Word document that served as the final deliverable. That document was later used by the manager as proof in meetings with the maintenance contractor, demanding that the defects found be corrected. Hours of manual formatting per inspection, with the inevitable delay between the finding in the field and the corrective action.
The solution was to implement the app with a template adapted to the client’s specific wind turbine technology, including notes and alerts on the critical points to check on each component. Now the supervisor takes photos and classifies the information — severity, defect type, location — directly from the phone, at the exact moment of inspection.
The change back at the office is dramatic: by the time the supervisor arrives, all the information is already synced and securely stored in the cloud, instantly accessible on the digital platform. The manager simply selects the relevant findings and generates an automatic report to send to the maintenance contractor, without touching a single photo by hand.
The result combines two benefits that are rarely achieved together: the supervisor gets back the hours once spent formatting documents, and managers get access to the information immediately, without waiting for the report to be “finished.” Traceability and response time with the maintenance contractor both improve as a result.
Easy to adopt, robust where it matters
Despite its functional power, GrowindCheck keeps an intuitive interface: the technician logs in with credentials provided by their Growind Systems contact, selects the template assigned for the job, and navigates through the question groups via a clear menu system. Mandatory questions are marked with an asterisk, removing any ambiguity about what information is required. And the technical requirements are minimal: any Android or iOS device with 1GB of free memory is enough to run the app.
One more piece of a system built for renewable assets
GrowindCheck doesn’t exist in isolation. It’s the field data capture layer of a broader system that Growind Systems has built since 2020 for the operation of wind and solar assets: availability and energy loss analysis, service order integration, blade control, predictive maintenance, and now, wind maintenance digitization through structured mobile inspections.
For an asset manager, a technical consultant, or an O&M lead, this comes down to something simple: the data collected at the base of a tower doesn’t stay at the base of the tower. It arrives structured and ready for analysis, on the very same platform used to manage the entire asset.
Want to see this wind turbine inspection app in action and how it can fit into your processes? Contact our team at info@growindsystems.com to request a demo.
#GrowindCheck #WindTurbineInspection #WindEnergy #AssetManagement #OandM
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