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Liftra Blade Yoke Deployed at Block Island Windfarm

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25 November 2016

This summer, GE installed five 6 MW wind turbines at America’s first offshore wind farm, Block Island, a project that posed considerable logistic challenges. For the installation of blades, Liftra was brought in to do the heavy lifting.

The turbines are GE’s 6 MW direct drive generators, which, unlike geared turbines, have no motor mechanism to actively rotate the hub. However, Liftra supplied a custom-made blade yoke that addresses this issue.

After installing the first blade, the yoke can be used to turn the hub in order to install the other blades. Weighing in at a healthy 52 tons and 10 meters, the yoke allows for great flexibility during this process, as it is capable of tilting and installing blades at angles between +30 and -60 degrees.

The blade yoke was in development for three years, undergoing extensive testing on other sites with GE’s 6 MW turbines.

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Offshore wind
Wind farm planning and development
Wind turbine manufacturing and components