Sarens raises turbines to new heights

With its 6 MW output, Enercon's E-126 turbine is one of the most powerful wind turbines in the world.

Earlier this year, a 1,600 tonne capacity Terex CC 9800 lattice boom crawler crane was used to erect them.

The project, at the port facilities in Hamburg Altenwerder, Germany was carried out by the Sarens Group heavy lifting specialist from Belgium.

The generator's axle is 135 m high, and the rotor has a 127 m diameter, giving a total height of just under 200 m. The complete upper, including turbine house, hub, and blades, weighs 650 tonnes.

The biggest piece is the hub with the steel blades installed, weighing 303 tonnes.

The CC 9800 has been optimised for lifting complete sub assemblies of increasingly large and powerful wind turbines with outputs between 6 and 7 MW to any height required.

With its 4 metre-wide main boom and an SSL/LSL, plus LF configuration, the CC 9800 can lift more than 300 tonnes to a hub height of just under 135 m.

In Hamburg the CC 9800 was supported by a CC 1500 that guided the third blade body for the first few metres.

"We're moving a machine with a tare weight of 1,800 metric tonnes from one place to another. And there is demand everywhere in the world.

Terex took this into account and optimised the crawler crane for cost-effective transportation," says Hendrik Sarens, Sarens manager and owner.

The Terex CC 9800 is based on the existing Terex CC 8800-1 and uses the same machine components as the larger 3,200 tonne capacity Terex CC 8800-1 Twin lattice boom crawler crane.