The Rattlesnake Ridge wind farm in southeast Alberta, Canada, is already providing clean, affordable energy for about 78,000 homes in the area thanks to its 26 5-megawatt wind turbines across 13,000 hectares of land. The wind farm was commissioned in May 2022, marking one year of clean energy contribution to the Alberta grid. The first maintenance work on the wind farm has already been undertaken, with Sarens, world leader in heavy lifting, engineered transport and crane rental solutions, playing a major role.  

On this occasion, the Sarens technical team was responsible for replacing the blades of one of the wind turbines as it was damaged. To do so, Sarens decided to use its LTM1400 and LTM450 cranes, with load capacities of 400 and 450 tons respectively, due to their ability to move over uneven or particularly soft terrain while guaranteeing the safety of the operators.  

The challenge of the replacement consisted in the position of the blades to be replaced. These were delivered months before Sarens arrived on site and were not in the right position. This also made removal and installation difficult, due to the 45-degree angle instead of the preferred 90 degrees to the tower. Thanks to the mobility of the LTM1400 and LTM1500 units, it was possible to move the new blades into position for installation and remove an old blade from the tower.

The complexity of this work involves being respectful towards the rural environment. For example, operating the cranes with special care not to distort or destroy the farmland surrounding the wind park. 

At the same time, it was of crucial importance to pay attention to the Club Root Crop Disease. This is a serious soil-borne disease affecting cruciferous crops (canola and cabbage family). The resting spores are spread through contaminated soil and infected parts of the canola plants. Therefore, extensive cleaning of the cranes is necessary to clean the soil and crop residues in order to avoid contaminated machinery meeting clean fields. Special care was therefore taken to disinfect machines and crawler tracks to avoid spreading the disease.

Sarens has a long history of developing wind projects in Canada. These include the Whitla Wind project, the Golden South Wind Project in Assiniboia and more recently, the Blue Hill Project in Saskatchewan. In the latter case, Sarens contributed to the transport and erection of 50 wind turbines at their final destination. This facility will be responsible for generating up to 200MW of renewable energy, enough to power up to 100,000 homes, and will bring an economic impact of over $45M to its community. In this sense, it is important to remember that the installation of wind farms not only brings energy to the areas where they are installed, but also contributes to their economic development by creating jobs and boosting trade.

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