November 2 - Johnson Crane Hire has helped install 15 wind turbines at South Africa's Chaba and Waainek wind farms.
The South African company was responsible for lifting seven 3 MW Vestas turbines at the Chaba farm, as well as installing eight 3 MW turbines at the Waainek site.
After preparing the wind turbine components on a laydown area at the respective sites, the company used a 750-tonne capacity Liebherr LG 1750 lattice-tower mobile crane to lift each part into position.
The components comprised tower sections, nacelles, drive trains, hubs and three rotor blades - all of which had to be lifted into place.
Each turbine had an 84 m hub height and 112 m rotor diameter; the tower sections weighed in between 42 and 58 tonnes; the nacelles weighed 70 tonnes each and the drive trains measured 58 tonnes; while the three blades each measured 55 m long and weighed in at 12.3 tonnes.
Once the LG 1750 model had completed work at the Chaba and Waainek projects, it was relocated to the Tsitsikamma wind farm for its next lifting job.
