OFFSHORE WIND Ӏ SECTOR REPORT
j utilisation days in addition to the equivalent of two years of heavy transport vessels. The USA is behind Europe
and China in terms of offshore wind, but that is changing. The Biden administration aims to have 30 gigawatts of offshore wind operating by 2030. Today the US has a fraction of that – just 42 MW from seven east-coast turbines. A legal constraint to installation has been the Jones Act, which requires shipping between US ports to operate only vessels built and owned by US citizens or permanent residents. It applies to installation vessels also. Dominion Energy, a Virginia, USA-based power and energy company, has therefore commissioned Dutch offshore lifting specialist Huisman to fabricate a crane that will be used on what it says will be the first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind installation vessel in the USA.
A vessel carrying blades approaches a wind farm
Liebherr, from their dedicated
dock at Rostock in Germany, has been a major player in loading wind-farm components, in transporting them, and in erection at sea. “We like to say that once a component reaches us at Rostock, it is Liebherr all the way,” says marketing manager Stefan Fröbe. At Rostock they have their rail-
Dynamic Load Monitoring weighs windmill blades
Dynamic Load Monitoring (UK) Ltd. of Southampton specialise in load cells and load monitoring equipment, especially for the renewable energy supply chain. Recently it provided a wireless weighing solution for MHI Vestas Offshore Wind’s facility at nearby Fawley. MHI Vestas needed an accurate way of measuring the weight of their 80m-long turbine blades - they are the length of nine London buses back-to-back - at both the root and the tip upon completion of the painting process. Accuracy is critical as the three blades that make up a turbine must be exactly matched to each
other for balance. Once the blades are weighed the manufacturer calculates how much ballast to apply to each one DLM provided a 25t capacity Telemetry Tensile Link and 20t capacity S-cell Load Cell, both
selected from the company’s standard range. They are highly accurate; the data is read by the operator on two separate wireless handheld displays. The load monitoring equipment is rigged beneath the hooks of the site’s overhead lifting equipment. The tensile link in this instance was the company’s TL-2.0. However, DLM has recently introduced
a third generation of its Telemetry Tensile Link Load Cell, a lightweight wireless measuring unit made from aerospace grade aluminium that combines a high level of performance with a robust design for harsh environments. The company’s S-Cell load cell (SC-1.0) is available from 250kg to 20t capacities and has stainless steel construction, welded covers, sealing to IP68 standard, and high accuracy in tension and compression.
mounted TCC 78000, which towers over the area. “It is huge – you can see it from the autobahn from miles away,” says Fröbe. It has a capacity of 1,600t. A common task for it is lifting monopiles arriving by rail, carrying them to the dockside, and lowering them – not onto vessels but directly into the sea. These huge – 800 tonne, 85
metres long – towers are not put on ships but are floated from dockside to their offshore destination, pulled by tugs.
Blades are high-tech and
delicate, and very finely balanced, so need more careful handling; special vessels, often with on- board cranes, are used. Yet a third component of wind farms are the platform rigs designed to hold transformers, servicing machinery and the like. They have, of course, cranes on board. A major cost, and risk factor, of any offshore work is people: transferring them to and from platforms is costly and dangerous. Yet wind farms, and their cranes, will need maintenance. The fewer personnel required to this, the more economical, and the safer. For which reason Liebherr have
introduced their LiMain system. It stands for Liebherr Intelligent Maintenance. The crane maintains itself, with greasing, condition monitoring and the like all f
40 CRANES TODAY
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53
