Paderborn, Germany headquartered crane hire and heavy load transportation specialist Hofman Crane Rental used its new Cometto BladeMAX1000 for the first time to transport 15 XXL wind turbine blades.
The 81 metre blades were being moved as part of the construction of the Zerfer Schneeberg wind park project near Zerf, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany.
The route they were transported along was challenging. It involved narrow roads, a forest, tight S-curves and a steep incline. The load also had to move from asphalt to a prepared gravel path.
The BladeMAX1000 was mounted on a 12-axle self-propelled Cometto MSPE combination. To help ensure stability along the route the SPMT’s Stability Control System (SCS) automatically balanced the load across all 48 of its electronically steered wheels.
The SCS is also designed to prevent the oscillation of the vehicle when the blade is tilted 60 degrees into the wind.
Once at the windfarm Hofmann used a LR1800 crawler crane to pick up and mount the blades on five Nordex wind turbines (types N163 and N149), each with a capacity of 5.7 megawatts. In future, the park is expected to generate around 81 million kilowatt-hours of green energy annually.
A YouTube video of the job can be seen here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQ8d3wkM6Mw&t=8s
