Ports and Infrastructure

Diversifying with Wind Cargo

By P. Marsh

For 80 years, the Port of Longview, Wash., situated on the lower Columbia River, thrived on the export of forest products. When the 1990s saw a marked decline in wood product exports, the port began searching for alternative cargoes to fill the gap. By 2000, the worldwide move toward renewable energy sources was beginning to bring an entirely new commodity to northwest ports — wind turbines.

Seeing a potential new market, the port began researching the wind industry with the goal of becoming a player in wind turbine shipments. The port’s strategic plan included joining the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), exhibiting at its annual Windpower conference, and developing relationships with turbine manufacturers, wind-park developers, and logistics specialists.

First Deliveries
In 2003, Longview was rewarded with its first turbine delivery: three shipments from Europe destined for a wind park in Evanston, Wyoming. These 1.8 megawatt machines were off-loaded directly onto customized 89-foot long Union Pacific rail cars. Handling the turbines’ components — three blades, the hub, the nacelle, and the tower in three sections each over 50’ long — posed a unique challenge and demanded that the port develop entirely new handling systems, explains Doug Averett, director of operations.

Longview is one of the few ports left that operates all of its own facilities and terminals, Averett says. As such, it has on-hand an experienced crew of operations, maintenance, mechanical, and longshore steady workers who were enthusiastic about developing their own rolling equipment and techniques to efficiently and safely move wind power cargoes. The port also had to make many infrastructure improvements to increase its market share of the wind-turbine business.

Upgrades to Handle Turbines
Facility upgrades included the purchase of 60 acres of adjacent land for lay-down areas where turbine parts could be stored until their site was ready. Vacant warehouses were converted into workshops where the turbine company’s own quality-control engineers can survey their turbines after the long sea voyage. New handling equipment included a Kalmar Reach Stacker and additional Hyster forklifts.

Since 2003, the port has successfully handled turbines made by all the major manufacturers, and it is presently handling turbines built by GE, Siemens, Acciona, and Suzlon that are arriving from diverse locations — from Europe to the Far East. In the case of the Siemens 2.3 MW design — the biggest land-based turbine built — this meant blades 148’ long and nacelles weighing 87 tons.

To illustrate the port’s operational efficiency, it took only three eight-hour shifts to discharge 60 of the Siemens tower sections from each ship — one shift for the towers on deck and two shifts for towers in the hold. It requires eight or nine trucks with specialized trailers to haul all the components for one complete turbine.

Large Share of Port’s Revenue
The port’s marketing director, Valerie Harris, estimates that, this year, Longview will be visited by as many as 50 ships carrying around 300 turbines, up from 37 visits and nearly 200 turbines and towers in 2007. This represents 23-25 percent of 2008 total port revenue, which will be in the $18-20 million range. (About $1.5 million went to longshore wages — the equivalent of about 30 jobs at base pay.)

The Port of Longview’s confidence in the future of the wind energy business is underlined by the recent purchase of a $4.5 million 107-ton capacity Liebherr mobile dock crane from Germany. This replaces the rented truck-mounted crane previously needed to handle the heavy nacelles. With its fully-computerized controls and ability to lift a 40-ton load across the deck of a Panamax ship, this new addition gives the port a competitive advantage in handling wind turbines for projects as far away as Montana, Northern California, and southwest Canada.

Piece of Port’s Future
There are a couple reasons the port is confident it will continue to see turbines coming in. First, because wind energy is not yet competitive with traditional forms of power generation, the AWEA has been lobbying Congress to continue extending the Production Tax Credit first passed in 1992. The 2009 credit extension had failed to pass by 17 votes this year, but was finally approved after it was added to the $700 billion financial bailout package.

In addition, wind power in the northwest is also backed by state law — both Washington and Oregon require utilities to obtain 15-25 percent of their power from renewables in the coming decade. The total number of installed turbines in Oregon and Washington now exceeds 1,000, with a maximum power output of over 2,600 MW — equal to a typical gas-fired power station. The number of turbines is predicted to double, and Longview expects to handle a good proportion of them.

“We are committed to supporting our current and future customers shipping heavy lift cargoes, particularly the wind energy sector,” stated port director Ken O’Hollaren.