OFFSHORE | APPLICATION REPORT
WHEN THE WINDBLOWS L
Offshore construction is dominated by the need for
renewable wind power. Wind farms need specialised and challenging lifting equipment. Julian Champkin reports.
ast year, more than a quarter of the UK’s energy came from wind power, and it was about equally divided between onshore and
offshore turbines. Offshore growth and opportunities, however, are considerably greater than onshore. Globally, the picture was similar. Installed offshore capacity grew by some 15%, to around 60GW. And we are only at the start of the story: the seaboards of the US are virtually untapped as a wind resource, though that is changing. Elsewhere, suitable shallow-water
coastal sites are already being largely exploited and attention is moving further offshore, where winds are stronger and more constant but waters are deeper. This is accelerating the development of floating turbines rather than towers set into the seabed, and their potential could dwarf that of seabed towers. Eighteen countries now have offshore wind farms – Italy joined the ranks last year – and 32 more have them under development or at the planning stage. Offshore wind construction is a boom industry.
But towers, floating or static, are tall.
The rotor diameter of a Siemens Gamesa generating turbine is 154m; vessels to lift them into place and to set the blades onto the nacelles need lifting apparatus to reach of 200m or more. All this needs not just specialised construction vessels but specialised support vessels also. The former are not just specialised but very specialised indeed, not least in their incorporated lifting apparatus; the latter also need winches specific to their purpose, and constructing these vessels is also a boom
R Huisman teamed up with O&K Antriebstechnik, part of the Bonfiglioli Group, in the development of a new jacking system.
www.hoistmagazine.com | April 2023 | 27
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