APPLICATION REPORT | POWER


wind market, Europe is expected to maintain steady growth, but new installations, predominantly from Asia and North America, will surpass this region and continue exceeding volume through to 2030. In the near-term (2020-2024), the majority of growth outside of Europe will primarily come from China and Taiwan, with contributions from the US becoming sizeable from 2024 when the first utility- scale offshore project comes online. Joe Biden’s administration approved a $2.8bn construction of the US’s first large- scale offshore windfarm, in May, a joint venture between energy firms Iberdrola and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, with 84 turbines to be installed off the coast of Massachusetts (part of President Biden’s energy plan is to ramp up offshore wind as a central part of the US decarbonisation plan). The project will generate about 800


MW of energy, enough to power around 400,000 homes and businesses, and is the first of many as it aims to generate 30 GW of energy from offshore wind by 2030. Two other offshore proposals, located in New York, are also under review.


LIEBHERR MARITIME CRANES As a partner for the wind energy sector, the Liebherr Group offers components for wind turbines, and foundation manufacture with concrete mixing plants, truck mixers, and installation of wind turbines. Liebherr Maritime Cranes celebrated #globalwindday in June claiming the efficiency and size of wind turbines is steadily increasing, making installation ‘a feat - on land and at sea’. “Global Wind Day is a day for learning about the importance of wind energy and its possibilities for reshaping our energy systems. The wind energy sector is currently on a strong growth path and 2020 was a record year. According to the Global Wind Energy Council, new wind energy installations totalling 93 GW were built across the globe, some 53% more than in the previous year,” wrote Natalie Litzl, report author, Liebherr Group. “It’s not just the number of wind turbines


that is increasing year by year. Their efficiency is increasing along with their size. And if the turbines are following the slogan “Higher, faster, further,” then the cranes need to keep up. For example, our lattice boom mobile crane LG 1750 was used in north-east Germany to install two turbines with hob heights of 170 metres and unusually heavy tower components up to 120 tonnes.


In any lifting operation, the wind speed at the location can affect the process significantly. To meet this challenge, the LG 1750 has a reinforced lattice boom that enables it to be used safely in wind forces up to 10 metres per second – sometimes as much as 11.2 m/s. When the individual rotor blades are lifted onto the turbine and secured to the hub. By their very nature, these present the biggest targets for the wind. Constant sea breezes mean offshore locations are perfect for wind farms. However, working at sea brings other challenges: the unpredictable and changeable weather, waves and swell. Offshore wind farms are often built using jack-up vessels. The Vole au Vent, working off the coast of Taiwan, is one such vessel. And on board the Vole au Vent is a Liebherr heavy-lift offshore crane, the CAL 45000. Jack-up vessels need to be able to work independently of the ocean swell, so they have lifting equipment that holds the vessel a few metres out of the water. The crane itself is designed so that its huge bulk can be positioned compactly on the vessel. The ship and crane work together as a single unit and are designed to match from the shipbuilding stage. In port, the wind turbine elements


are loaded onto the vessel using mobile harbour cranes. The jack-up vessel then transports the turbine elements to their offshore destination. Even when working offshore, the first stage of building the wind turbine is to create a foundation. These are often made of monopiles –


steel piles that the crane drives into the sea floor to depths of up to 60 metres. An intermediate element is then lifted onto the foundation and the tower elements are set on top of this. Finally, the machine house and rotor blades are lifted into place and secured. The CAL 45000 lifts up to 1,200 tonnes during these jobs; its big brother in the offshore crane series, the CAL 64000, can lift as much as 1,500 tonnes. But these numbers pale in the face of Liebherr’s new HLC series of offshore cranes, which will be able to lift loads up to 5,000 tonnes. “The Biden administration Offshore Wind


project will generate enough power to meet the demand of more than 10 million American homes for a year, and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions. To accomplish this, much more powerful Lattice Boom Crawler Cranes will be required than those that are typically used in the onshore wind industry. The current parameters we’re hearing from customers point to the LR 11350 (1,350 mt capacity)


R Liebherr offshore crane, CAL 45000


as the primary offload crane, but it has a slim capacity margin. We know in the crane and rigging industry that nothing ever gets smaller and lighter, only bigger and heavier, so we’ve been recommending the LR 13000 (3,000 mt capacity) to give more flexibility with lifting radius options,” says Jim Strobush, product manager, Crawler Cranes, Liebherr USA Mobile and Crawler Cranes Division.


WILLIAM HACKETT FOUR PAWL Earlier this year, William Hackett launched its first ever subsea lever hoist to incorporate four pawl mechanical engagement, which is of interest to contractors working offshore. “This patented pawl design enhances the capabilities of the hoist allowing all four pawls to engage with the ratchet gear in an offset configuration. So, if both pawl springs were to fail the quad pawl would maintain full engagement with the ratchet gear,” says Craig Adams. commercial sales manager, William Hackett Lifting Products. “We have seen increased demand for


lightweight and smaller hoists which led to the development of the WH-L4 compact lever hoist, these handy hoists are available in 250kg and 500kg and have proved extremely popular with wind technicians due to their weight and size. Another area of growth has been YP lifting points which enable lateral lifting that traditional eye bolts are incapable of making them more desirable for on and offshore lifting projects. “After engagement with many offshore contractors we have found ongoing issues


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