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CAPITAL EQUIPMENT NEWS
MARCH 2016
38
TRANSPORT & LOGISTICS
L
ocally based international heavy-lift,
specialised transport and plant instal-
lation company, Vanguard has been
awarded the transport and crane erection
contract for the Nojoli Wind Farm near
Cookhouse in the Eastern Cape, once again
showcasing its experience in this sector
and its specialised engineering solutions.
The Nojoli project comprises 44 Vestas
V100 2 MW wind turbine generators, which
have the capacity to generate more than
275 GWh per year or enough for 86 000
South African households.
“In recent years we have transported and
erected over 160 turbines at wind farms
around South Africa,” said project and me-
chanical engineer Robbie Boshoff.
The company’s contract commenced with
discharging the vessel in December 2015
at the Port of Ngqura near Port Elizabeth,
and storage at the port. “The team on this
tight-deadline project had an early start to
the year, arriving back to discharge a sec-
ond vessel on 2 January 2016 with further
vessels to be discharged throughout the
project.”
According to Boshoff, the contract will run
until 23 June 2016, and involves not only
the discharge and storage at the port, but
also specialised transportation of all com-
ponents to site, about three and a half hours
away, followed by the erection of the tur-
bines utilising Vanguard’s GTK1100 crane.
A fleet of extendable and multi-axle trailers
transports the components, which include
nacelles weighing 72 tonnes, hubs of 21
tonnes, and turbine blades of 50 metres in
length.
“Among the challenges to be managed on
this route to site is a mountain pass with
very narrow turns,” said Boshoff. “We work
with the traffic authorities to close off the
pass entirely, so that our extendable trailers
can safely use the whole road to manoeuvre
the blades through the turns.”
On site, the GTK crane is assisted by a
dedicated and specialised team, including
two qualified Red Seal riggers, who lead
the team to assemble and break down the
crane, so that it can be moved and posi-
tioned for the next turbine – each process
taking around 10 hours. “Another team
pre-populates the handstands with the
components in advance to ensure that no
delays occur with the main build,” he said.
With every aspect of the job, detailed meth-
od and risk assessments are done, includ-
ing environmental assessments.
Once operational, Nojoli Wind Farm’s en-
vironmentally-friendly electricity supply
will save the atmosphere from more than
251 000 tonnes of carbon dioxide each year,
which would have come from coal-powered
stations.
The wind farm is being constructed by Enel
Green Power, which has about 740 plants
operating in 15 countries in Europe, the
Americas and Africa; EGP’s total installed
capacity is 9 600 MW from a range of
sources including wind, solar, hydroelectric,
geothermal and biomass.
b
VANGUARD AT WORK
with wind turbines at Nojoli