April 5 - Mammoet has transported and installed six new transformers in a 1.2 km deep cave for the Kafue Gorge Upper hydroelectric power plant project in Zambia.
In 2012, Mammoet transported and installed the first four of ten new transformers for the plant from the Netherlands to Zambia, before winning the contract to deliver the remaining units to the station. Mammoet was also required to remove the ten old transformers from the facility.
Mammoet collected the 105-tonne transformers at the manufacturing facility of Royal Smit Transformers in Nijmegen, the Netherlands and shipped them via barge to the Port of Antwerp.
The units were then lifted from barge to ship and delivered over 9,000 km to Walvis Bay port in Namibia, before being loaded onto trailers for the 2,200 km journey overland to Kafue Gorge.
Each new transformer had to be driven down a 1.2 km long tunnel inside a cave to the installation area. The gradient and space constraints required Mammoet to reconfigure the trailers and use two prime movers for each delivery.
Once the old transformers were disconnected, they were loaded onto the trailer while the new units were offloaded using a gantry crane and positioned, ready for connection. Together with Royal Smit Transformers, Mammoet designed a bespoke lifting frame to manoeuvre the units into place.
