SITES, engineering group specialized in the sustainability of exceptional structural assets acquires Cornis, high tech company leader in wind turbine inspections and artificial intelligence solutions.
Cornis is specialized in tracking and monitoring the ageing of wind turbines thanks to Artificial Intelligence tools and methods. For the past 10 years, Cornis has served the main wind turbine owners, operators and manufacturers in the world for their blade inspections and expertise. Cornis has clients in over 40 countries (+ 20.000 wind turbines inspected) and a revenue of 2M€ with 75% coming from exports.
Thanks to this acquisition, SITES, a structural health monitoring pioneer since 1984, is reenforcing its position in the low-carbon energy sector. SITES is an independent leader of structural inspections and monitoring of hydro and nuclear facilities as well as transportation infrastructure and complex structures. This strategic acquisition allows SITES to be present in the wind energy sector and the renewable energy sector. This alliance of 2 top French companies will allow to accelerate the export strategy of both companies (towards the North of Europe : UK, Denmark, Belgium, Germany where large portions of the wind industry are based, and towards China and South Africa where SITES has subsidiaries) as well as the technological development of new solutions for structure monitoring and inspections.
Complementary high-tech know-how « Made in Europe »
Both Cornis and SITES have tackled the topics of preventive monitoring and condition based maintenance for asset integrity management. Both companies have a common approach combining a detailled knowledge of structural assets and their ageing dynamics, a strong expertise in inspections, and deploying the best cutting-edge technologies in imaging, signal and image processing, data science and Artificial Intelligence.
Cornis blade inspection tools and Cornis online reporting and bade health tracking platform are used to track and follow over 20.000 turbines, including 40% offshore turbines. These tools have important synergies with the solutions developed and deployed by SITES for High Definition Mapping and digitalization of structures and Structural Health Monitoring.
From day one, both companies have operated on strong shared values including high ethical standards based on independence, being proud of exporting French technology, the determination to be a key actor of the energy transition and sustainable development by taking care of energy and transportation infrastructure.
« With Cornis, we are happy to position SITES as an independent leader of low carbon energy infrastructure monitoring, to accelerate the digitalization of our tools and methods and to welcome a team that shares our values. » commented Hervé LANÇON, SITES co-CEO.
Thibaut GOUACHE, co-founder of Cornis, added : « Cornis is now joining SITES’ long and sustainable 35 year history and experience. For our clients, thanks to SITES, we are broadening substantially the know-how of our teams, to not only monitor our clients’ wind turbine blades, but also the concrete foundations and metal towers of their wind turbines. For the founders and employees of Cornis, this merger is an excellent opportunity to continue to grow within the wind industry and to address new challenges also outside of wind. It is a great collective success. »
This merger consolidates in Europe an independent actor capable of offering, in Europe and internationally, structural monitoring services over the entire life cycle of an asset, cutting-edge expertise and a strong know-how in innovation on tools and methods.
Cornis is integrated inside of SITES as a separate business unit dedicated to Renewable Energy and will ensure a complete service continuity to all its clients. To date, SITES group has more than 450 employees.
About
Created in 1984, SITES is a structural health monitoring pioneer and a specialist engineering company dedicated to infrastructure performance and service life. SITES has more than 450 PhDs, engineers and technicians working in 5 agencies in France and 3 international subsidiaries in China, South Africa and Saudi Arabia, generating close to 35M€ revenue in 2019.
With more than 5 000 structures monitored globally, SITES’ teams operate in a large diversity of industrial sectors (nuclear energy, transportation infrastructure, patrimony and historical buildings, conventional buildings, natural surroundings of infrastructure, defense and space) with a large diversity of competence and know-how: engineering and design, monitoring, instrumentation and measurements, expertise, technical assistance to asset owners.
Cornis is one of the major providers of tools and technologies to manage Operations and Maintenance blade data. Thanks to Artifical Intelligence (AI),
Cornis helps turbine manufacturers, operators and owners and indepdant service providers (VESTAS, EDF, GE, RWE, Engie, Ørsted, etc.) each time they need a solution to follow a wind turbine blade. Created at the end of 2011 by Thibault GOUACHE and Baptiste COULANGE, Cornis is a 15 person company based in Paris France and servicing clients in over 40 countries.
