April 5 - Technotex, a member of the Unitex group of companies, is supplying its Ultralift slings to the Greater Gabbard offshore wind farm under construction 23km off the UK east coast.
Scheduled for completion in 2012, the Greater Gabbard wind farm's 140 turbines will generate 500 MW of electricity for the people of London. With a load factor of greater than 40 percent, the estimated output is 1.9 TWh per year.
To provide peak performance in 35m seas, each turbine is being installed on top of a 65m monopile each weighing approximately 650 tonnes.
Verbrugge Zeeland Terminal is overseeing the lifting operations.
The UNITEX group manufactures a complete range of round slings, web slings and lashing systems, including a special heavy lift range, called ULTRALIFT™.
The Technotex ULTRALIFT™ round sling offered the same strength as steel wire, chain, with a significant weight reduction - one-seventh of the weight of steel wire rope. In addition, it offers higher stiffness (no elastic response while lifting) and is smaller in diameter for improved handling and flexibility of positioning.
Beyond safety, the ULTRALIFT™ slings are also contributing to better handling of the expensive monopiles. Because the slings are soft, they avoid damaging the monopiles during the lifting operations. All the work done to-date strongly confirms the prognoses of safe and damage-free handling, cost savings as well as durability.
Technotex/Ultralift are Supporting Industry Manufacturers to the Cargo Equipment Experts (CEE) global network for asset based companies, active in the heavy cargo transport market, such as hauliers, crane operators, tug and barge operators, stevedores and export packers, port operators and air cargo handling equipment owners.
