UPDATED: Load-orienting technology will make offshore installation safer

With MHI Vestas it is working on the application of its technology to the process of installing wind turbine towers. MHI Vestas has previously announced a range of ‘SMART Turbine’ products, including ‘SMART Dampers’ that are designed to actively reduce fatigue loads on wind turbine towers. Now, MHI Vestas has signed a contract with Verton to produce innovative new tooling to handle the SMART Dampers during installation.

Verton managing director Trevor Bourne said, “Working on offshore sites is difficult enough and is further complicated using taglines to control loads during lifting operations.

“Our Columbus 7.5 SpinPod will be capable of precisely controlling the orientation of a custom lifting yoke and its load, including setting and holding a desired orientation, even under the most challenging conditions.

“This remote-control solution eliminates the need for taglines and for workers to be near the landing area, greatly improving safety and reducing the number of people required. Precise orientation control will also enable lifting operations to be completed more quickly.”

MHI Vestas chief technology officer Torben Hvid Larsen said the technology “will enable us to increase our offshore handling capabilities and make our product and associated handling procedures smarter, safer and more flexible.”

The first lifting solution in the company’s product range was the Everest 6, which was designed to effectively orientate any suitable load using angular momentum stored in Verton’s gyroscopic modules. The Everest 6 was the springboard to the larger versions of the technology, such as the Everest 30, which has five times the force of the Everest 6 and the ability to ‘nest’ with additional spreaders and rigging to further increase rotational capacity and control larger loads.

Mr Millis describes the Everest 120 as a ‘next-level’ system. It has four times the force of the Everest 30 model with four SpinPod 30 gyroscopic modules. It is suitable for use on spreaders or on a load itself, and can be powered by either a battery bank, onboard generators, or hooked into an external power source via an umbilical cable from a crane.

2021 will see the Windmaster introduced, a complete wind turbine system suitable for lifting and orientating blades without the need for taglines.

Asked about the productivity increases possible with the company’s technology, Mr Mills said it was hard to generalise and that the benefits of using the system would be case specific, but said that in other applications productivity increases have been “dramatic” – in the order of a 30-40% reduction in the time required for a specific task.

As awareness grows of the advantages of Verton’s technology, Mr Mills expects significant interest from other turbine OEMs, who decide how their turbines will be installed by contractors, and from installation contractors themselves.