Sarens is accelerating the world’s energy transition, and as part of that work we have been installing wind turbines across the globe. On a recent project for client Vestas, on behalf of owner Besix, Sarens was entrusted with assembling a wind turbine in Bilzen, Belgium. 

Sarens’ team of four – a crane operator, auxiliary crane operator, SL supervisor, and site manager – increased to six during assembly, disassembly, and reconfiguration. Together, they worked from January through March to first unload and assemble the tower parts and then assemble the wind turbine. 

For this project, Sarnens used a CC3800 crane in two configurations: LSL15 and LSL+LF14. The first configuration was used to offload, mount, and install the three lower tower sections. The crew then reconfigured the crane into LSL+LF14 configuration to lift the top turbine parts and blades. 

Before installing the wind turbine itself, Sarens assisted with unloading and assembling the tower parts, the heaviest of which weighed 118 tonnes. In total, the crew performed 12 lifts, eight of which were with superlift. The crane had to slew and crawl for most of the lifts, but the crew had the advantage of working on a mostly open job site. The team only had to pay attention to two production plants that needed to remain accessible during the project.

For this project, all equipment was transported to the site via truck. However, due to the outsized measures of some parts, the trucks needed to follow a specific route that was three times longer than regular transport would have been. Assembling the crane in the first configuration took three days, and then another day to reconfigure it into the second configuration.

While the team experienced some challenges, including blade delivery delays, necessary crane programming updates, and two weeks of weather delays, the team rallied to lift the wind turbine into place and successfully complete the project.

“Thanks to the support of colleagues on-site as well as in the office, and good cooperation with the client, we managed to reach a good result,” said project manager Matthias Raeyen.