Heavy lifters
| Bolton |
Breakbulk ports may be ideal drop-off points for vessel loads of wind turbine components, but if the equipment isn't there to efficiently lift and maneuver these large pieces, the business opportunity simply blows away.
'For manufacturers of nacelles, towers and blades, they're looking for ports with cranes that reach approximately 100 tons at 100 feet,' said Gordon Bolton, president of Gig Harbor, Wash.-based Advanced Motion Industries, a crane and port equipment consulting firm. 'That's the magic number.'
Many breakbulk ports are quickly finding themselves behind the power curve for lifting increasingly larger and heavier wind turbine components. Traditional port crawler cranes and tractors, which often use custom-made attachments and slings, risk damaging this fragile cargo.
'The dollar value of this cargo is so great that you don't want to be the one responsible for damaging it,' Bolton said. 'I see ports now making every effort to accommodate this business.'
To ensure their place in the wind energy sector, some ports have recently acquired giant mobile harbor cranes, namely from Liebherr and Gottwald.
In 2006, Washington's Port of Vancouver bought Leibherr's LHM 500S crane, capable of lifting 140 metric tons. With 20 axles and 80 wheels, the crane can maneuver in any direction, said Nelson Holmberg, a port spokesman.
The wind turbine business that has crossed Vancouver's docks since 2006 was impetus for the port commission to approve the $4.4 million purchase of a second LHM 500S crane in October 2008. The crane, built at Leibherr's plant in Rostock, Germany, was delivered by vessel to the port in mid-March.
The biggest selling point of the LHM 500S is the onboard automation, which helps the crane operator lift without swinging the loads, said Brian T. Spain, vice president of Liebherr Port Equipment, based in Houston.
LHM 500S cranes have also been recently deployed at Washington's Port of Longview and the Port of Beaumont in Texas.
The $5.3 million crane 'can be moved to any point in the port and has a farther reach than the port's current cranes in operation,' said Mike Smith, spokesman for the Port of Beaumont.
Gottwald recently sold its giant GH MK 6407 harbor cranes to the Florida ports of Tampa and Manatee, and Gulfport, Miss. While these ports use the cranes for container operations, they offer an array of opportunities for handling project cargoes, such as wind turbine components, said Bob Histon, general manager of North America for Gottwald Port Technology, based in Tampa. Port Freeport in Texas uses a GH MK 3280 crane to lift wind turbine components.
Both Liebherr and Gottwald have benefited from their many years of proximity to the major European wind turbine manufacturers and providing lift to these components in European ports.
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| Anastasio |
Terminal tractor manufacturers are also taking aim at the wind energy market in the ports, intermodal terminals and component factories throughout the United States.
'They're using our reach stackers to handle blade, tower sections, generators and hubs,' said Jim Anastasio, president of Cargotec Solutions for Kalmar Americas Region, based in Monroe, N.J. 'We're selling many of these to that industry.'
'Our involvement comes into play in how wind turbine components are moved around the port and to the transport equipment,' said Herman Klaus, vice president of big truck operations for Hyster Co., based in Greenville, N.C.
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| Hyster recently developed a special blade-handling attachment for its HR45-40 ReachStacker truck. |
Hyster recently developed a special blade-handling attachment for its HR45-40 ReachStacker truck. The rotating attachment can be used in the retracted position to handle smaller blades and be extended to handle larger blades up to 15 meters center of gravity. It can also be supplied with twistlocks at each corner to engage lifting beams for handling pairs of blades in shipping cradles.
In addition, Hyster makes truck attachments to handle tower sections. 'This gives users of our trucks a lot of flexibility to handle the different types and sizes of wind turbine components,' Klaus said.
With price tags of several millions of dollars for the new heavy lift mobile harbor cranes, and the trucks and reach stackers costing upwards of a $500,000 apiece, port authorities may be inclined to try to make due with smaller, less adequate handling equipment, which increases the possibility for damage and ultimately lost wind energy business opportunities.
'Municipalities sometimes focus on the initial costs of the equipment, when a properly outfitted crane will save them more money over the lifespan of the crane and provide the level of service that their wind energy customers are expecting,' Bolton said. 'The reality is that these cranes pay for themselves very quickly.'
The Port of Vancouver views ownership of its two LHM 500S cranes as means to attracting all sorts of heavy and outsized cargoes to its docks. 'Project cargo has definitely increased at the port because of the crane,' Holmberg said. For example, in May 2008, the port used its LHM 500S crane to lift nine cable reels, each weighing 90 short tons, from a vessel and onto rail cars for a ski slope in Whistler, Canada.
'That was the reason we got that project cargo,' Holmberg said. 'No one else on the West Coast could handle it.'