Most wind turbines are still transported by road. This undermines the credibility of wind energy as a environmentally friendly technology. Rail transport is thus gaining in importance.

For anyone who spends much time driving the A1 Autobahn in northern Germany it is a familiar sight: gigantic tractor trailers transporting the components of wind turbines. The oversized length of the trucks carrying rotor blades is impressive. ­Measured by their weight of almost ten tonnes, the expense of transporting the rotor blades seems ­disproportionately high. However, the weight of the blades is not the challenge, but rather their length. Typical rotor blades today measure from 40 to 65 m long, considerably longer than any other form of transport covered by Germany’s national road traffic regulations. Without a special permit, these ­trans­ports cannot move an inch.

It is not unusual for special transports to be parked at a rest area over the weekend, waiting for a couple of days before they can get going again. This raises the question of whether rail transport might not be less expensive and time consuming. ­Moreover, it may be possible to use railways for international transports as well.

The Fuhrländer successor company, FWT Energy, and its sales arm FWT Trade based in western ­Germany, put these ideas to the test with an ­ambitious project. The rotor blades for 22 FWT 2 MW turbines made in China were transported to Kazakhstan by rail. The former Soviet Central Asian republic has been expanding its power supply through the use of the wind energy for years and is doing so with ­western technology. That means plenty of work for the logisticians because Kazakhstan is thousands of kilometres away from any wind turbine manufacturer.

By train is faster

It is a very long journey from the Chinese province Jiangsu to the Ekibastuz wind farm in the middle of Kazakhstan. As the crow flies, it is 6,000 km away, but what does that say about the actual distance? Transport by road would run through central China with questionable road conditions. Moreover, the route leads over the Tianshan mountains with mountain passes nearly 4,000 m high. The cargo itself complicates the task. Each rotor blade is 45 m long.

In principle, the logisticians can use three ­different transport modes, truck, ship or train.  The decision was based on time and cost, says Markus Ritschel, Head of Logistics at FWT Trade. “After ­assessing the trade-offs between transport time and costs, we decided to pre-load the rotor blades on trucks and bring them to the transhipment area. We then load them onto the train and take them to ­Kazakhstan. Once they arrive, they have to be loaded back onto a truck to go the last few kilometres to the construction site.”

The time aspect was the major advantage of rail over ship or road transport. It would have taken two to three weeks before the special vehicles for a road transport could begin the trip. A ship would have ­taken even longer, says Ritschel. “We would have had to travel through the Indian Ocean, the Suez Canal, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea. Then, we would have had to get as close as possible to Kazakhstan by rivers and canals, and then go the rest of the way by truck.”  The trip would have taken at least six weeks.

The decisive factor is time

The cost aspect was secondary to transport time and safety in the decision for rail transport. For the transport of such long units by road, logisticians have to use expensive special-purpose vehicles with features such as remote-controlled steerable rear axles. The number of obstacles within the road infrastructure, such as moving street signs or crash-barriers, would be considerably lower than in Central Europe, ­however, because the area to be passed through in China is sparsely populated. As such, there are ­correspondingly few towns to pass through or other bottlenecks, which could only be negotiated at a walking pace or by increasing road clearance.

The long transport time was enough to eliminate the option of transport by ship. A further disadvantage was the relatively expensive loading and ­securing tackle required for safety reasons, when such goods are transported by sea. When the stand for transporting the blades by ship is compared with the stand used for rail transport, the cost advantage of the pragmatic Chinese solution becomes obvious.

Apart from the purely technical handling issues, an administrative hurdle remains which, says Ritschel, can only be negotiated with a local partner. “The local freight forwarder took care of many formalities for us,” he says. “It also purchased the loading and unloading infrastructure – perhaps this is too big a word to describe the crane that was ordered.”

Vestas lowers costs and emissions

FWT Executive Henning Zint considers this transport a pioneering achievement for the industry. “This was uncharted territory for us,” he emphasises.
“We had no proven solutions.” For this reason the Chinese forwarding agent, which procured the long transport railcars, carried out some of its own tests on the ­fastening elements prior to the final ­dispatch.

The FWT transport was without doubt a ­pioneering achievement. It is not, however, the first rotor blade transport by rail. The real pioneers of such transport are the logistics provider SNCF ­Geodis, the former ­national railway in France, together with global ­market leader Vestas. A full year before the FWT ­transport took place, a train travelled from the ­German Vestas production site of Lauchhammer to the Danish port of Esbjerg in June 2012, loaded with nine rotor blades. The transport of the 55 m long blades took less than 20 hours to complete. This first rail transport of rotor blades in ­Europe spared the company the use of nine tractor trailers and 18 escort vehicles. Furthermore, at 72 hours, the convoy would have ­taken four times longer than the rail transport.

“With this innovative approach, we’re not only making an important contribution to reducing energy costs but also to reducing pollution,” says Mette Heileskov Bülow, Vice President of Transport and ­Logistics at Vestas in a press release. SNCF and ­Vestas want to continue to improve cargo traffic ­further ­between the Danish manufacturer’s production sites. Vestas is doing this, not only with special regard to the environment but also to its funding. “Even at this early stage, we’ve already managed to reduce ­transport costs by up to 15 %,” says Bülow, following the company’s initial experiences.

Enercon logistics way ahead

Even though Germany has led the list of wind energy countries for many years and currently has well over 30,000 wind turbines churning out electricity, the Deutsche Bahn subsidiary DB Schenker has so far ­expressed no interest in this business – at least not publicly. A phone call to DB Schenker confirms this impression: “We have the technology for it but have so far not carried out any contracts for transporting rotor blades,” a Deutsche Bahn spokesman says. Why is this so? The answer is strangely nebulous. Somehow, the people at Deutsche Bahn ­headquarters do not seem to know for sure. The spokesman can at least point to an increased interest from DB ­strategists. He also expressed confidence that ­Deutsche Bahn will enter this market very soon. Meanwhile, the debate over who was first to adopt rail logistics is contentious – or, maybe it is not. After all, the German market leader Enercon has owned the e.g.o.o. rail operator as a 100 % subsidiary, since 2007. That is difficult to top. Enercon is using its ­subsidiary to develop a logistics concept that is ­totally unique amongst wind power manufacturers. The company not only owns a railway company but ­also a ship for transporting large components, such as nacelles and rotor blades.

The activities of the Enercon rail company also ­include long-distance national transport of goods, as well as the parent company’s own semi-finished and finished products. The wind turbine manufacturer wants to continue expansion of the Enercon rail ­network, and even has its eye on extending beyond national borders.

Jörn Iken