KLASCO has its eye set on the most powerful wind turbine cranes
The representatives of company “Klaipėdos jūrų krovinių kompanija” (KLASCO), which is developing the offshore wind farm terminal at the port of Klaipėda, continue to intensively upgrade their knowledge on the successful examples of the construction of wind farms and other large industrial projects, and getting acquainted with the latest and most innovative technologies, which are specifically designed for the development of these projects.
“Wind power energy projects are exceptional due to their specifics. Parts of power plant foundations or turbines can weigh more than 2 thousand tons; thus, conventional loading solutions are not suitable. It is not always possible in to organize the unloading of heavy and large components by RoRo method, it is often necessary to load components of this weight with special cranes adapted for this purpose. Neither KLASCO nor other port handling companies in Klaipėda port use such cranes in their usual activities. Therefore, it is very important for us to analyse the market and choose partners that offer exactly such specific equipment,” told Production Director of KLASCO Marius Januškevičius.
There are very few companies in the world that have equipment for loading specific cargo, one of them is SARENS company. The cranes of this company are successfully used in the construction of HPC nuclear power plant in England. Production Director of KLASCO Marius Januškevičius and Project Manager Dionisas Sirutis visited the site of that project.
“SARENS ring crane has been in operation here for five years already. The crane itself is impressive, weighing about 10 thousand tons, the lifting capacity thereof is 5 thousand tons. A rail system with 3 separate working positions to which it can move independently has been specially designed and built for this crane. It took 11 weeks to assemble the crane. 2 auxiliary crawler cranes were used for assembly of the crane, each with lifting capacity of 700 tons. In this construction, it was necessary to load cargoes weighing about a thousand tons, and they had to be lifted on top of the built reactor, with the reach of the crane even close to 100 meters,” as Project Manager of KLASCO D. Sirutis explained about the crane he saw and the capacities thereof.
After visiting England, KLASCO representatives established cooperation relations with SARENS company and discussed the possibilities of developing the wind power terminal in the port of Klaipėda. During the meeting, representatives of SARENS talked not only about the technical capacities of the crane or other equipment at their disposal, but also about the nuances of loading marine power plant components, the practice of managing such projects, many elements that can only be learned by long-term practice.
