Platform for delivering 86-meter-long wind turbine blades through rivers and canals
As the two partners have now announced, the first waterway vessel for such rotor blade deliveries to wind farms anywhere in Northern Germany is currently being built at a shipyard in Szczecin, Poland. The so-called push barge, the first of its type and named Rhenus Berlin 1, is scheduled to be completed this year. Once it has left the shipyard and is deployed in Germany, it will enable the additional delivery of 86-meter-long rotor blades to wind farm construction sites, primarily on the North German canals, between the North Sea and Baltic Sea, and roughly the Mittelland Canal. The platform-like, elongated inland waterway vessel will also be able to navigate the Elbe and Oder rivers, far into the hinterland, loaded with two rotor blades each for Enercon's latest flagship wind turbine, the E-175.
The push barge, specially developed by Enercon and Rhenus Logistics to supplement road transport, consists of three individual, assembled flat segments. They form a 92-meter-long loading area. Behind them, a separate drive unit pushes the flat, assembled load carrier along the waterways. With a total length of 100 meters, this rafting unit is just short enough to accommodate the Scharnbeck Lock in the Elbe Lateral Canal between the natural river and the Mittelland Canal. Welding the three barge segments together offers a significant advantage over building a completely new inland waterway vessel: The conversion using existing components took six months, whereas building a completely new vessel specifically for E-175 rotor blades would take considerably longer.
The vessel will be able to transport no more than two rotor blades side by side. Stacked on top of each other, they would no longer fit under many canal bridges. The concept envisages switching from conventional single-blade transport by truck to blade pair transport by barge in the event of temporary road closures or closed routes. Depending on the project, the barge can be used in a fast shuttle service. If the experience with the new rotor blade transport vessel is positive, the partners could produce additional barges of this special series, as Rhenus Logistics has demonstrated upon request from RENEWABLE ENERGY.
For us, shifting transport to waterways is a strategic key to securing the energy transition logistically as well," says Michael de Reese, head of the Rhenus Port Logistics division, i.e. port-based logistics using shipping.
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