Overall, the yoke is said to reduce installation time by about 50 minutes per turbine.

A recent hydraulic lifting yoke from Danish company Fyns Kran Udstyr (FKU) has been tested in the world’s largest offshore wind farm, London Array. The company says the yoke makes handing offshore turbine foundations faster, cheaper and more secure.

Typically, it can take up to an hour to prepare to lift the 370-ton foundation parts, also known as Transition Pieces or TP’s, from dock to vessel and vessel to offshore structures. With the hydraulic yoke, the TP is ready to lift within 10 minutes with only one employee needed to handle and adjust the TP.

The yoke is hoisted onto the flange on the top of the TP. The hydraulic system then secures the yoke to the flange and the TP is ready to lift. During the lift, the hydraulic yoke adjusts the TP near to the center of gravity. At this point the TP is  level so the risk of tilting when the TP is placed onto the vessel is minimal. The same safety remains at sea, where it is even harder to handle the enormous foundations.

Windpower Engineering & Development

-Transhield

Tower sections are one example of problematic parts because they are tremendously heavy. Typical lengths run from 60 to 70 ft and more with 15-ft diameters, and weights of 100,000 to 150,000 lb. Such loads are transported on special equipment with many axles. Shippers need an approved route before getting a permit, and approved routes can change from day to day.

The message from the transport industry is that the current size and scale of wind-turbine components presents a considerable challenge to the trucking industry. The challenge is exasperated by a fragmented regulatory system under which the trucking industry operates. Each state determines the routes that large trailers must take and the condition of the roadways on which they travel.

Over the last few years, a 1.5-MW wind turbine has been a prevalent size on U.S. roads and wind farms. It is about the largest and heaviest that transports easily on most U.S. roads. But turbine design is trending to larger units, hence, 2.5 and 3-MW units will soon be more frequently encountered. These will be challenges for transport and construction companies because each state has different rules, and approved routes change as frequently as the wind. This is potentially bad news for wind-farm developers that expect to stay on construction schedules. Hence, wind project developers must consider transportation early in making wind farm siting decisions.

Windpower Engineering & Development

OEMs, such as Suzlon, have a contracts department to handle their many details. “You want to form relationships with carriers,” says the company’s Logistics Director Gary Kowaleski. One route to a good relationship is with a contract that leaves little to no interpretation. He suggests at least these items for a shipping contract:

• Description and quantity of components.
• Dimensions and weights for each component.
• Define the driver’s free time.
• Scheduling: What will be delivered, to where, and when.
• Detention rate by component. Detention applies when meeting on-time criteria and when it takes excess time (longer than x hours) to load or unload a trailer. For instance, a nacelle trailer will command a higher rate of detention because it costs more to operate than, say, a blade trailer.
• Billing: How do you bill? On a weekly or monthly basis, or batch billing?
• Payment and payment terms
• Lien waiver form. It states that if payment is made, the carrier can not apply a lien against the goods. Basically, the carrier holds title to the cargo until it is released.
• Cargo value
• Cargo security
• Arbitration. When two specialized companies have a dispute, they do not want a judge unfamiliar with the industry to provide a ruling. Also, a costly civil and statutory proceeding takes time. Therefore, an independent arbitrator is hired to hear both sides and make a ruling.
• Road surveys: Identify the route, low bridges, high-voltage wires, and other hazards
• Provide a full time on site coordinator and define their role in detail.
• Damage claims: Equipment is occasionally damaged in transport so discuss the process ahead of time so the transport company knows what it will be held accountable for.

Windpower Engineering & Development

ATSI crunched the numbers on several transport modes including truck and barge. In the end, it was contracted to move 40 towers to the project by barge and the remaining components by truck.

“The beauty of the barge option is that all the transport and stacking frames that let us double stack the towers were still in place from when they were imported from Korea. Without them, this would not have been a feasible option,” says Goering. “What’s more, the tug and barge company, Foss, had built a good deal of support brackets on the weather decking to safely secure the stacking frames that would manage the unpredictable inclement weather common to that time of year.”

“Believe it or not, transporting 40 towers by barge took only six weeks versus 16 weeks for the trucks, and the barges eliminated the bottle neck of requiring a California State Police escort,” he said. “The truck trip would have called for more capacity in escorts than the state could offer.” The final decisions provided a shorter transit time, and reduced the amount of patrol required for escorts.

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The Port of Vancouver, Washington boasts two of the largest harbor cranes in North America. Each has a 140-metric ton capacity. The size allows reaching across a wide ship to unload heavy cargo. A 100-ton crane could have trouble unloading a Panamax-sized (wide) vessel because it cannot reach across the ship and pick up an 80-ton nacelle.

The port’s two cranes are identical. “We can use them in tandem to pick up a single 210-metric ton load,” says Alstair Smith, senior marketing director for the port. “Then it has to be moved around the facility. With assistance from the stevedores, we’ve managed to increase the amount of special-line equipment.” He explains that, “A port needs need different equipment for wind energy than regular cargo. It needs equipment such as reach stackers. The port has five, one with capacity of up to about 60 short tons, and most others with 45-ton capacities. Other port equipment includes “top picks” of heavy capacity, trailers with 100-ton capacities, and spreader bars for the cranes, rated for 120 tons. The port handled about 2,700 components in 2009 and will manage 3,400 this year.

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Minnesota-based ATSI contracted the Justin Foss to pull the barge of turbine towers to a port in California. Shipping them this way was less expensive and faster than by trucks. Photo: Dennis Schwartz

How many of you are raising your children to be truck drivers?” a speaker asked at a recent AWEA conference. No one raised their hand. “This is partially why there will be a shortage of skilled drivers,” he teased. The other reasons he suggested were that this lifestyle is not attractive to young people today who are looking for more of a white collar way of life which rewards them financially and affords them a homelife that driving a truck does not. Others followed Doug Miller, VP of Operations for Lone Star Transportation LLC, detailing the frequent challenges of delivering large heavy loads in the wind industry. To make the work more difficult, such loads are growing larger and heavier with multi-megawatt turbines.

Railroads seem the ideal way to move huge and heavy goods, but even these are hampered by turns too tight for long loads, such as blades, and a few tunnels too small for the 12.5-ft wide nacelles. Here’s what else that keeps logistic directors up at night as they struggle to get turbines and towers to sites on time, and how OEMs are responding to their boat-in-the-basement problem.

Trouble with trucking
Before a driver even starts a diesel to deliver a turbine, a detailed logistics plan must be laid out. Inexperienced planners have a habit of overlooking this detail until the end of the project. Trucking managers warn that it can take months to formulate. In a nutshell, the plan involves assigning lots of specialized and expensive equipment, filing for and receiving permits from several states, and then finding drivers and support personnel.

The Schnabel trailer, built by Trail King Industries (trailking.com) shows the complexity of equipment needed to haul large wind turbine towers. The $300,000 trailer is intended only for moving large base and lower-mid tower sections. Trailer sections attach to opposite ends of the tower.

And consider this: moving just one complete turbine takes 9 to 10 trucks, most of which are specialized trailers. Different trailers are needed for the nacelle, blades, and towers. Lone Star Transportation’s (LoneStar-LLC.com) Doug Miller says hauling nacelles and tower sections require equipment that cost up to $425,000 or more. For instance, three vehicles are needed to move each blade set, one specialized trailer moves the nacelle, and up to four specialized trailers transport tower sections. In some cases, the latter group requires even more specialized rigs, called Schnables. These trailers are used as the diameter of the tower increases and to lower the transport’s overall height to obtain more direct permitted routes. Generally, the smaller sections, ship on more conventional specialized trailers. Finally, one or two more trailers are often needed for other smaller components.

Let’s keep counting. Depending on the distance the components are transported over, delivering six turbines per week could requires up to six or more trailers and rigs, plus 18 ore more blade trailers. So a trucking company may have $12 to 13 million tied up in assets. “Furthermore, that shipment calls for 54 drivers to lead the glamorless life style I described, not to mention support equipment such as escorts, pilot cars, and others needed for a safe delivery,” says Miller.

As a specialized 48-state carrier over irregular routes, the complaint Miller hears most often from drivers is short home time and not enough money. “The two don’t go together because spending time at home means you can’t make money. You cannot fix the monetary compensation without raising costs for everyone else. We have to balance that problem if we want an industry to attract people.”

Logistic Director at Suzlon (suzlon.com) Gary Kowaleski also recognizes the trucking problem and highlights a few more details that OEMs and wind farm developers should appreciate. For instance, the drivers that move super loads are the more senior drivers and few younger drivers are moving up to replace retirees. An average truck driver salary is about $40,000/yr, and tops out at about $60,000.

To make matters worse, rules and regulations are changing with respect to work hours. Lone Star’s Miller says a driver can work 70 hrs in eight days under current regulations. That person can spend 14 total hours working on the job in the course of a day, 11 of which may be spent behind the wheel.

Proposed regulations also say drivers can work 70 hrs in eight days, but a daily total cannot exceed 13 hours, with 10 behind the wheel, and two mandated 30-min. breaks. “On the surface, the new rules are not too bad. But this industry is over-dimensional so it is already restricted by curfews in metro areas,” says Miller. “So an average day actually runs from about 9 am to 3 pm because you only drive in daylight hours. Factor in the new deal with two 30-minute breaks and drive times drop to five hours or less each day. So this regulation will be detrimental. All it does is require us to buy more equipment and hire more people because of the short cycles.”

On the plus side, a recent standard from the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA) shows some promise. “It’s probably the best measurement tool we have in the industry,” says Miller. “It will weed out some bottom feeders that don’t do the job right. But it needs some refining and tweaking.” For example, he says, a measurement system puts companies into peer groups. Lone Star is a specialized carrier, but the FMCSA groups it with van carriers that have the same population of trucks or drivers. “We operate 1,000 special trucks while JB Hunt, for instance, operates 1,000 vans. But we are graded the same. That makes no sense.”

Likewise, the points assessed for violations needs adjusting. “For instance, a driver involved in a fatal accident is assessed a violation of two points. But if an inspector find a frayed strap or securement device, the company is assessed a penalty of ten pts. “It seems the fatality should carry a lot more weight or point value than a frayed strap. So the point system also needs an adjustment,” he adds.

The nacelle arrives at a wind farm on a 13-axel rig operated by Lone Star Transportation. Almost each part of a wind turbine requires specialized equipment for transport.

In port Keeping up with advances in the wind industry is one challenge ports face. They must foresee what cargo will be offloaded and provide storage for it, as well as infrastructure that gets cargo to a final destination. “That means anticipating changes that might take place, such as how wind industry loads influence port facilities,” says Alastair Smith, Senior Director of Marketing Operations for the Port of Vancouver, Wash. For example, in 1999 turbines were mostly 660-kW units and weighed about 19 metric tons (1 metric ton = 1,000 kg or 2,200 lb). “Now we handle nacelles that weigh about 90 metric tons and some manufacturers hint they could be up to 132 metric tons in the near future,” says Smith. “So we’ve had to make sure we have the capability to handle those.”

One rising issue is having enough space to handle large components. For ports, it’s not a matter of handling a single construction project, but balancing multiple projects at one time. For example, Smith finds turbine shipments are frequent in a year’s first quarter. But construction firms don’t get access to wind farms until second quarters. Hence, the port has to stockpile a lot of material prior to construction firms taking stuff out. “Construction companies want the turbines all in one place when they get access into wind-farm sites. Then they want components delivered at a steady pace.”

Smith says his team allocates acreage for all projects and ensures that if they do not have enough acreage available, they will develop more. This year, the port developed 25 acres and will add 24 more.

With regard to costs, most shipping charges do not come from ports. Smith says the Port of Vancouver has an advantage over others in that it has the best access to about five major areas in the U.S. where wind is growing: Pacific NW, California, Colorado, Texas, and Upper Midwest. “The transit time from Asia, where a lot of towers are made, to the West Coast is about 15 days. “Taking a shipment to a Gulf port would take 30 days, so the port has a 15 day advantage,” he explains. Cost estimates for the extra 15 days include the vessel charter rate, fuel consumed, and fees for going thru the Panama Canal. Thus, the charter rate for a vessel can be $25,000/day for an extra $375,000. Fuel cost is close to another $225,000. Then add $100,000 for the canal.

Wind on the rails
A few OEMs have addressed their logistics problems in part by locating factories on the Great Plains. From there, shipping by rail across the relatively flat expanse is less problematic than over mountains. However, although railroads are generally considered more efficient than trucks, a few tunnels in the East and West are too small.

Wide nacelles are problematic because tunnels and tight mountain turns are a constraint on rail shipping. For instance, if turbines must be transported through some parts of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Maryland, the 13-ft max width drops due to smaller tunnels and tight turns. Long blades, 55m and more, are also difficult to transport through some tunnels.

Railroad limitations also fall into structural and operational categories. Structural limitations refer to loads that cannot exceed the 13-ft width. Flatbed rail cars are 10 ft 8-in.wide, so nacelles can exceed that by a small margin, but 12.5 ft is about max. Width is so critical that trains with wide loads cannot pass each other on adjacent tracks.

Unit trains are generally least expensive to operate. These have much the same freight, such as all turbine components. To haul such equipment, private companies such as Kasgro Rail (kasgro.com) and TTX (ttx.com) have built and own most of the about 400 8-axel cars capable of 400,000 lbs or 200 tons. The car owners would like to keep that stock busy.

At times, it has taken days to unload trains because of limited storage, or the construction firm is not ready for the equipment. Offloading a train at a spur requires a crane hired by a third-party logistics operator.

Unit trains have a few challenges. For instance, a train of nacelles might exceed the design rating of some bridges, an evaluation that calls for limiting a load per distance. Railroads get under the limit by putting an empty car, a spacer, between each 8-axel flat bed. Hence a 25-nacelle train would require 25 spacer cars if it must use an older bridge.

As with other transport companies, railroads would like advanced notice to plan big shipments and involvement in the development of new turbines. GE, for example, had the foresight to consult with CSX while designing its 2.5-MW turbine which the company manufacturers in Florida. The company involved the railroad in 2009 when work began and shipments now proceed without difficulty.

A few solutions
Almost every transportation representative sees solutions to logistics problems. For example, all agree it’s a good idea to partner with your shipper. Lone Star’s Miller says his company would like to act as a transportation consultant. “We ask, ‘can your components become modular?’ If so, what does that do you for the reassembly tasks? And, can sourcing and suppliers be more localized? Also, we suggest opposing regulation changes and support lifting other restrictions we face with respect to over dimension loads.”

Miller says his company would rather spread its assets around and do more projects with less equipment per project by having other transportation modes such as rail bring components close to the site and let his trucks work the last few miles. “That would let us put one truck on site instead of six. Then I can assign the remaining five to other projects. We work with other modes of transport because we know one carrier can not do it all. Strategic partnerships are a huge part of this business.”

This year, the port of Vancouver Washington allocated 70 acres just for wind energy. It takes about one acre to park about six towers (24 sections) with room between to effectively move trucks and trailers. Two years ago the port purchased Terminal 5, which adds 100 acres for project cargo, enough for 600 tower sections.

Energy Transportation Inc. Business Developer and Logistics Manager Shelli Short (energytran.com) says her company found a successful and similar strategy in building a large flat gravel lot near a rail spur chosen because it’s within 200 mi of several wind farms. The lot is intended to hold large parts that will be trucked the final leg to sites. She reports that the strategy has been working well. Short also suggests that country-wide permitting for transports would be a good place to start fixing the problem of turbine shipping and its expenses. Each state differs in planning, permits, and costs, and some charge up to $50,000 for the permit alone.
Maintaining nacelle sizes and weights will allow fitting new turbine designs on existing 13-axel trailers, equipment acceptable in most states. But if nacelle weight exceeds 165,000 lb, 19-axel trailer might be an option, while actual transport and timing becomes a research project. Suzlon’s Kowaleski says designers at OEMs are listening. “For example, Suzlon recognized an opportunity to expand its existing tower line from an 80-m design to include 90 and 100 m. There were no difficulties with the 80-m tower relative to transport, but two years later, a 90-m tower design was introduced which could be manufactured at our supplier in Mexico. However, it would not have been possible to transport it by rail to North America due to a wide base diameter that could not have passed over a particular bridge. During the design of the 100-m tower, transport details were requested and supplied to engineering relative to North America logistics. When the design for the 100-m tower arrived, we saw it had the same base diameter as the 80-m unit, which made our 100-m unit viable for rail transport from Mexico. The OEM engineering team is listening.”

If OEMs don’t listen to the logistics people, things can get messy. For example, a construction manager recently explained that if a load at a rail stop is too heavy for one truck, as with one recent nacelle, they’ll take pieces and parts off until it’s under a weight limit. Just keep the reassembly manuals handy.

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Transhield’s Shrinkable Fabric covers feature a patented Adhesive Additive Delivery – Vapor Corrosion Inhibitor system which is said to provide 100% protection from corrosion during transportation and storage.

Custom fit covers are an alternative to heavy, expensive custom tarps or conventional hand wrapping for various wind-power applications. Transhield covers are made from Shrinkable Fabric and consist of three layers: an outer layer that is UV-resistant and anti-condensation, a middle adhesive layer, and a soft inner layer. The covers install easily and shrinking the cover makes for a tight fit, resulting in quality protection from factory to field for tower sections, root ends, blades, and other products.

Transhield Inc.

www.transhield-USA.com

Windpower Engineering & Development

The problem with moving wind-turbine components is their size–they are gigantic. Nacelles can measure 12-ft wide and over 20-ft long, while half of a tower can be 12-ft wide and almost 150-ft long. And blades –conversation stoppers on most highways– easily span 100 ft. Moving these structures takes special equipment, trucks, trains, ships, and harbors. Siemens is so serious about moving their turbines properly it uses custom railcars. At least one trucking company spokesperson warns turbine OEMs about building a “boat in the basement,” a turbine so big there is no way to move it out of port. No one transportation mode can do it all.

Trends in this area consist of caution from each company’s perspective. For instance, Doug Miller, VP operations Lone Star Transportation LLC, says custom rigs for moving nacelles and towers may cost up to $425,000, and renting for about $1,000 a day. Furthermore, a trucking company can spend $13 million on specialty equipment. “To make matters worse, there is a shortage of qualified drivers,” says Miller. “Most are about 55 years old and few driver are moving up in the ranks, because the life style of an over-the-road driver is difficult.”

In an ideal world, he adds, a railroad will bring turbine components to within about six miles of a wind farm. Then one truck could bring components to each turbine foundation while six more work on other projects. He also says that transportation planning is an afterthought too often. Thirty days is not enough time to plan for a project. It can take months because it’s likely to involve multiple modes to find the lowest cost.

Pending Federal regulations are also likely to take a toll on trucking by limiting the amount of time a driver can work. Current regulations say a driver can spend 10 hours/day behind the wheel, but those under consideration will drop that period, and thereby increase costs.

Theo Vallas, a senior account manager for CSX Railroad, says railroads are about three times more efficient than trucks for moving heavy equipment. But even railroads have challenges with clearances from the large parts. For instance, many tunnels are too small for the bulky components. A cargo width of 12.5 ft is about maximum. Some tunnels in states such as West Virginia are narrower.

Alastair Smith with the Port of Vancouver USA is a bit more optimistic saying the facility has made investments to ensure it has the appropriate on-dock equipment, sufficient land for storage and staging, a trained labor force and logistics teams, as well as a rail head for four railroads capable of moving wind-energy cargo.

West Coast ports have seen a growing number of wind component imports from Asia, especially China, headed for farms in the Northwest, upper the Midwest, and Canada.

“One way to limit costs when loads are coming from Asia, is to unload them at the Port of Vancouver rather than spend another 15 days shipping them to Gulf ports,” says Smith. “Add the cost of charter rates for vessels per day to the cost of fuel and developers can save nearly $600,000 in transportation fees by using the West Coast port.”

As for equipment, some ports are upgrading. “For instance, Vancouver has two 140-metric ton Liebherr mobile harbor cranes,” says Smith. “When used in tandem, these can lift up to 280 metric tons.” The port’s heavy-lift capability makes it possible to lift increasingly heavy and large nacelles from the offshore side of a vessel, saving time and eliminating the expense of turning the vessel. This creates greater efficiencies and reduces OEM costs.

To accommodate larger turbine components, the port recently purchased an additional 218 acres of industrial property that includes 100 acres of storage space specifically for wind components. This property includes a rail service loop track to provide a dedicated rail line for loading wind towers. The track will increase the number of towers that can be loaded to rail cars per working shift, resulting in lower labor costs.

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Panel:
- Vikash Patel, Transportation & Logistics Manager, GE Energy Logistics
- Sally Chope, Transportation & Logistics Manager, Siemens
- Terrance Moore, Dir. Business Development, American Electric Power (AEP) River Operations

1:30p – Vikash Patel, GE Energy
- Quality of logistics from OEM is key in earning business

- Keys to Good Logistics Team: Controllership, Communication, Rely on Core-Compency
- Cons to using Third Party Logistics Partner: Adding Expense, Remove Margin %, Lack of Industry Knowledge, Lack of Industry Visibility.

1:45p – Sally Chope, Siemens

- Siemens blade increase in blade size has been dramatic in last 2 years.
- Logistics needs to predict future…what ever we plan for today will change by the time we have to deliver.
- Siemens owns it’s own trains specific to their blades, towers, & Nacel
- All Sold & High Probability projects need to be considered in long-term logistics plan.
- Considerations for Logistic Plans: Trains can’t be pulled up to site, so can we get big components to site with trucks or do they need to be sized down? Need & Cost of escorts or police escorts; Road & Bridge height & weight clearance.

2:00p – Terrence Moore, AEP
- Division of Columbus, OH based AEP
- Barge water logistics is third tier because they still need rail & truck transportation.

- Initial Assessment includes: Origin & Destination; Load Date; Delivery Date & Fabrication Date, Size Requirements
- Port Considerations: Dock & Pad Capacity; Crane Capacity, Lay Down Area; Perimeter Features including impediments, Rail Access, Security; Highway access; Weather/ Time of Year considerations.
- Key Benefits of Water Transportation: Safe & Secure, Environmental Friendly, 24/7 in-use and tracking, less physical impediments.

2:15p – Nikhil Amin, Trinity Logistics Group
- Manufacture of Train & Barges
- Custom Rail cars for towers and blades
- Forecast Reliability -> Sets the Plan
- Supplier Reliability -> Sets the Service Model
- Pick Up & Delivery Timeframe -> Ensures site & customer confidence
- Site Readiness to unload -> Optimizes manpower & equipment
- Optimized Equipment -> Ensures Capacity
- Performance Measurement – > Ensures Standardization
- Contingency Planning is Critical – shrinking delivery window by weather & production; Dependency of supplier/vendor, Equipment Readiness, State/Local planning

Q&A

Q1: What are logistics strategy for Windpower in remote areas?
- A1: Sally – Lots of pre-planning.

Q2: Is it possible & necessary to standardize highway codes?
-A1: Vikash – Could it be done, probably…will it, probably not. Wind could push for similar exception as mobile homes, where they can travel nationwide without restrictions of most logistic regulations from state & local.

Q3: As Wind Turbine grow to larger sizes, how are you innovating logistic systems?
- A1: Sally – we actually try to stay ahead of curve through the companies innovation. Heading to Europe next week to work with a new product that is so large it is currently unable to be railed.

Q4: As Off-shore grows how important is it to colocate with projects?
- A1: Terrance – AEP is inland based so AEP barges won’t currently work for off-shore except for Great Lakes but there certainly are ship and barge options for this transportation.
- A2: Vikash – need to be ready to break units into smaller pieces at port and put back together onsite offshore

Windpower Engineering & Development

Goldhofer
www.goldhofer.com

Windpower Engineering & Development