Lifting Wind: How Barnhart Cranes Enables the Wind Industry

The wind industry relies on heavy lift cranes and transportation equipment to construct and maintain massive turbines. Our guest today is Brian Thomas, Vice President of Business Development at Barnhart Crane & Rigging. Barnhart specializes in providing crane services for some of the most challenging lifts in the wind industry, from blade replacements to initial turbine assembly. Brian discusses Barnhart's specialized engineering capabilities, their work erecting some of the earliest US wind farms, and innovations like their "tri-block" system for more efficient tower lifts. He also provides an inside look at logistics challenges as turbine sizes increase, the complexity of repowering projects, and Barnhart's focus on safe lift engineering. As offshore wind ramps up in the US, Brian shares how Barnhart is partnering to bring their onshore expertise to this new frontier. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly email update on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard's StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary Barnes' YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!  Barnhart Crane - www.barnhartcrane.comPES Wind - www.peswind.comPardalote Consulting - https://www.pardaloteconsulting.comWeather Guard Lightning Tech - www.weatherguardwind.comIntelstor - https://www.intelstor.com Barnhart Crane Allen Hall: Welcome back to the Uptime Podcast. I'm your host, Allen Hall. Heavy lift cranes and transportation equipment are vital to the construction and maintenance of wind turbines. From hoisting colossal tower sections to delicately placing turbine blades to the hub, people who operate these massive machines are the unsung heroes in the wind turbine world. Our guest on this podcast is Brian Thomas, Vice President of Business Development for Barnhart. And Barnhart began as a small family-owned company in Memphis, Tennessee, but has since grown to be a major player. And the heavy lift and transportation industries with operations. across the United States. For over 20 years, Barnhart has provided major maintenance services for blades, gearboxes, generators, yaw bearings, basically anything that is really heavy. And Barnhart has also assembled wind turbines and worked directly with the OEMs to construct some of the early wind projects in the United States. Brian, welcome to the program.  Brian Thomas: Allen, it is a treat to be here. Thank you. Thanks for having us on.  Allen Hall: So I'm not a crane expert and so it's great to talk to someone who is just because. It is true, the cranes, without the cranes, wind industry doesn't exist, and without that expertise, we would be nowhere. And you want to describe some of the early things that Barnhart participated in in the United States in terms of wind turbine construction? Brian Thomas: Sure, I will tell you that our, our, for being a crane provider that really came out of the heavy industrial market where we were operating in refineries and power plants, nuclear plants. And then we get to a wind farm and they say, okay, we're going to, we're going to put up this turbine here and then you're going to walk across this field and, and put one up on the, over there. And I'm like, excuse me, you don't walk across the field. And, and so the early days that where we stepped in was in the, kind of the 1.5, 1.8 megawatt range. They were still erecting V47, you know, the 640 kilowatt machine, and that was a con, typical construction crane, like an M2250, like a, you know, 250, 300 ton crawler. And those would generally be more favorable to to walking across the field. But you know, it obviously turbines have grown you know, to. amazing heights and sizes now. And so, you know, just from being a, from a crane provider perspective, that's been,