Van Oord and Mammoet have entered into a partnership with scale-up Verton to develop a new lifting method for installing wind turbine blades. The method is to shorten installation cycle times and make installation safer for operators.
Scale-up Australian tech company Verton has developed a remote rotating device that uses gyroscopic modules to rotate a suspended load. Together with international marine contractor Van Oord and heavy lifting and transport specialist Mammoet a new concept has been developed in which this unit is integrated into a lifting yoke for installing wind turbine blades.
Without Tag Lines
‘The system allows operators to rotate and install heavy loads without using tag lines. Not only is this safer for operators, but it also shortens the installation cycle times,’ said Wouter de Wildt, mentor from Van Oord.
Long Partnership
Both Van Oord and Mammoet have committed to engage in the first of three phases of the development. The first phase is the kick-off phase, to have the technical assessment and requirements made up. Turbine supplier Vestas will be knowledge partner in this development. Vestas will provide the project partners with the technical information and expertise required for the development of the new product.
PortXL
Verton was scouted via the maritime innovation platform PortXL. PortXLis the world’s first maritime and port accelerator platform. This was Van Oord’s fourth year of participation in the initiative, both as a founding partner and mentor. Mammoet entered as a partner and mentor in 2018.
Through PortXL start-up and scale-up companies can present their product to companies active in the port. In this case both Mammoet and Van Oord showed interest after which it was determined how the product could be of use to the companies resulting in the development of the concept for lifting wind turbine blades.
Watch a video by Van Oord of their cooperation with Verton and development of the lifting method below. The picture at the top is a still from the same video.
