The numts and bolts of importing wind turbines

The South African logistics industry is still in its infancy when it comes to dealing with wind farm installations. These projects are rather new to South Africa with the introduction of private public partnerships in the energy sector, but there are many in the pipeline. “This is a highly specialised sector of the logistics industry,” Venesh Basdew, sales executive mining & projects at SDV, told FTW. “There are a lot of challenges in the learning curve for everybody, including logistics companies, in the wind farm projects arena.” Typically a wind farm project would start with a tender process, where interested logistics and forwarding companies would submit requests for information, followed by requests for quotations, if a company is shortlisted. These projects are extremely long in lead times. Even the tender processes start off slowly , Basdew noted. “These projects are multiphased, and we are required to bid for every single phase as if that’s a new project,” he explained. “Once the project has been allocated, we won’t start work on it within the next two years since the first-round construction still needs to start. Tenders in the first round were allocated three years ago.” The forwarding company would be able to get involved in the shipment of the wind turbine parts from the supplier to the final site for the wind farm, but the trend in South African projects has so far been for the company setting up the wind farm to secure shipment of components on their own steam. Only when the components land at a port in South Africa do forwarding companies get involved. This is mainly to save costs on huge projects like these, which can run into billions of rand. The best port of entry is determined by the wind farm location and the logistics relating to the movement of these oversized, abnormal units. Wind farm developments in the Eastern and Western Cape are serviced by the ports of Ngqura and Saldanha respectively, for example. The ports in the country that can handle over-sized cargo relating to wind farms are equipped with off-loading equipment, including cranes alongside the vessels, specialised extendables and self-propelled modular trailers (SMPT). However, Basdew noted that most vessels came with their own gear that can offload the turbine components. Each vessel can carry about 10 sets of turbines, with each set including a set of blades, a tower, the foundation and the nacelles. The nacelles are the heaviest parts of the turbine set, and can weigh between 60 and 86 tonnes, depending on the size of the turbine. To make the off-loading and transport of a wind farm even more interesting from a logistics point of view is the shape of the blades, Basdew said. “The blades are lighter, and generally when you’re travelling on the road, you can go faster than with the nacelles, but the shape of blades make their moving interesting,” he explained. Blades span between 40 metres in length up to 60 metres. “You have to have specially manufactured extendables for these blades,” Caroline Brownson, project business development at SDV, said. She noted that a limited number of transport and rigging companies exist in South Africa that specialise in super abnormal cargo, anything over 125t. These companies already get involved in the moving of the components early on, from the ship to a lay-down area in the port. The turbine components are loaded onto the extendables and the SPMTs that will take the parts to the lay-down area. Sometimes the port can provide cranes in these areas to assist with the offloading and movement of the equipment. These cranes can handle anything between 100t and 1 200t in weight. The transportation and rigging companies again get involved when the turbines have to be moved to site. One convoy can only consist of two abnormal vehicles, as per the road regulations. A typical trip from port to site of a distance of 800km, for example, would take one convoy of turbine components 14-15 days to complete, with restrictions on the speed limit for an abnormal load, while a convoy will only be allowed to be on the road during light time hours of the day. INSERT 1 These projects are multiphased, and we are required to bid for every single phase as if that’s a new project. – Venesh Basdew INSERT 2 A typical trip from port to site of a distance of 800km, for example, would take one convoy of turbine components 14-15 days to complete. – Caroline Brownson CAPTION Wind turbines powering up the project sector.