15.03.2012

Windy commitments in Hamburg

Around 200 crane wind industry people met up in Hamburg yesterday for the first ESTA wind safety summit, following the spate of serious crane accidents in the sector. Delegates travelled from as far afield as Brazil and New Zealand.
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The summit atracted around 200 delegates

The meeting generated some serious statements and commitments from some wind turbine manufacturers and from ESTA, all aimed at reducing the number of incidents and fatalities. Most, if not all, of the wind companies categorically and publicly stated that in spite of crane rental company's perception they do place safety above cost.

Siemens led the way with the categorical statement that – at least going forward – that safety comes before all else as part of its Zero Harm policy. Its corporate clarity on this is summarised in a statement from its chief executive: “We will never compromise on safety, no matter what the deadline no matter who the customer”
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Paul Eijro Okpurughre of Siemens talks Zero Harm

Most of the crane delegates have yet to be convinced, based on the question and answer session later in the day. Criticisms, which applied to wind turbine companies in general, included the short lead time that are given on many contracts, sometimes providing only two to three weeks to plan what is a highly complex lift, the fact that access roads on many sites are being built both narrower and to a lower standard, the fact that serious companies offering a fully planned contract lift often find themselves “competing with a taxi crane quote” and the fact that pricing pressures result in the smallest possible crane being used for the job, effectively eliminating the extra safety margins that most agreed was required to cope with the effect of wind on fully assembled rotors and other components.

Presentations included a thorough look at the effect of wind on loads, particularly on rotor assemblies which have a far higher drag coefficient and larger sail-area for their weight than is allowed for in standard crane load charts, potentially resulting in a quadrupling of the wind effect. If the wind is coming from the side of the crane boom, the side loadings inflicted will easily exceed the two or three percent factor that most manufacturers build into their load charts. If the boom does not buckle, the ground may, as outrigger loadings can easily spike by more than 30 percent over the maximum allowed for.

Crane movement on site was another subject covered in some detail, with blame being placed jointly on some sites installing access roads that can only cope with cranes in their road legal state, while knowing that time and cost demands lead to moving cranes fully rigged along these same roads, with disastrous results all too often and operators being unaware of the raised centre of gravity when travelling fully rigged.

The need for basic common standards wind farm access roads, minimum standards for lifting contractors and pan European crane operator licensing were just a few of the proposals that ESTA committed to pursuing with vigour. ESTA secretary Søren Jensen said “The Promise from ESTA is that we will pick up the ball on these issues”
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Søren Jensen prepares to "pick up the ball"

Other points that were seriously taken on board, included the industry wide reporting and sharing of near miss incidents, the prompt and open sharing of accident investigation data – this in spite of one speaker saying
“If we repeat an accident it is upgraded to stupidity” and the idea that only operators with specific wind turbine lift training should be permitted to work on wind farms.

This first meeting of its kind was a credit to Jensen and the ESTA the ESTA secretariat, well organised with some good presentations and a solid turnout.

No wind turbine delegate could have left the meeting without a clear understanding of the international crane fraternity’s view that the wind industry’s relentless price, costs and time pressures are the principle causes for the industry’s recent poor safety record.

Most crane delegates would have come away with a renewed respect for and understanding of the effects that wind can have on wind turbine installation work. And perhaps some will have seen at least a partial commitment from the wind turbine community to stop taking crane safety for granted.

We will provide further coverage of the conference, the presentations and the points that it raised in the next two issues of Cranes & Access.

Vertikal Comment

This was a very good meeting and without doubt benefits will accrue from it in the years ahead, however it was also a missed opportunity on a number of levels. Although in the real world thus is almost inevitable, the first attempt rarely gets the whole job done… but sets out the agenda and gets the ball rolling.

ESTA almost certainly underestimated the interest this subject generated and clearly overpriced it - given the numbers that were present - if their intention was truly to organise a non-profit meeting. Whether the price and the location put off further people attending we will probably never know, but as ESTA president Christian Vernazza noted there were a lot of people and industry sectors not represented – in spite of the high turnout.

The fact that the panel did not answer, comment on or discuss one or two of the questions and comments, or try to tie down a number of tricky issues such as the sharing of accident data and near misses was also a shame. Although these are subjects that may well be more suited to smaller sub-committee meetings to resolve?

All in all an excellent first step which now needs to gain some momentum, along with the involvement of a wider cross section of the crane and wind industries. A few solid measures could very quickly get the industry very close to Siemens Zero Harm aims in a year or two if some strong and open leadership is applied.