BLOWING IN THE WIND

Until recently the small South African town Loeriesfontein 425 km north of Cape Town was best known for the Fred Turner Museum. It commemorates the travelling bible salesman who in 1894 established a general store around which the town settled.

For years the most striking sight to greet you when driving through Loeriesfontein, has been a cluster of more than two dozen wind pumps, displayed as part of the Fred Turner Museum. However, recently the skyline around Loeriesfontein has changed significantly: As part of its most recent wind power contract in South Africa, Siemens is supplying 157 wind turbines for the projects Khobab, Noupoort, and Loeriesfontein.

BMS Heavy Cranes has helped erecting 61 wind turbines at Loeriesfontein, each with a capacity of 2.3 MW. Connected to the national power grid the wind farm will supply up to 120,000 homes. The Loeriesfontein project is equipped with Siemens SWT-2.3-108 wind turbines with a rotor diameter of 108 m and towers with a hub height of 99.5 m.

Provided that the weather is good erecting of a 100 m tall wind turbine can be done in just one day. Still, the procedure itself is quite complicated, as the three 53 m fibreglass reinforced epoxy blades are connected to the rotor at ground level before being lifted. At this point two cranes are required to work simultaneously – one raising the assembled rotor whilst another guide the rotor into the correct position.

The BMS Heavy Cranes crew at Loeriesfontein consisted of two European and three South African crane operators, an European crane supervisor, three riggers from South Africa, a HR manager, and a Project Manager.

After Loeriesfontein BMS Heavy Cranes continued to Khobab Wind Farm, also consisting of 61 Siemens wind turbines.