Installation

The following pictures tell the story of a typical fluxy turbine installation. You can view the images at a larger size by clicking on them.

After the site is carefully chosen, ground is broken for the foundations.

The foundations for this 20m installation will require 20 cubic metres of reinforced concrete. The spoil is removed from the site if required.

Everything is carefully measured to ensure accurate quantities of concrete are ordered and that the pad complies with the engineers specifications.

KRE are extremely respectful of peoples land and gardens. We like to minimize the visual and environmental effect of our installations by careful planning, site preparation and common sense.

Pictured here the trench is being dug by hand to reduce any disturbance to flowerbeds. The removed soil is layed on sheeting which reduces the impact on a lawn and keeps everything tidy.

We use whatever plant and machineery will do the least damage to the garden. Here a rubber tracked digger will injure the lawn as little as possible.

In the meantime the steel reinforcing cage is constructed on site and put into position.

2 to 4 layers of steel mesh are used as appropriate.

Back at the factory the bolt template is assembled...

...and galvanized, and the 30mm holding down bolts are attached with a sub frame ready for shipping to site.

The template is heavy; it has to withstand a tidal wave of concrete.

The template is placed into the excavation and leveled very carefully, the bolts have to be exactly vertical.

Measurements are made for the positioning of the trunking which will bring the turbine cable from the site to the inverter board 65m away in this case.

The conduit is cut and positioned.

Everything is wired into position.

'Foundation bolt cones' are attached. This gives a little wriggle room during the tower base installation stage.

The first of three trucks arrive and dispatches its load.

The concrete is manually agitated to remove any air pockets.

The last load is poured.

The cable trench is now finished, 660mm deep.

The cable is inserted into the conduit, buried and...

...the buried cable warning tape is layed at 300mm.

It takes quite a lot of work to return a garden to near perfect state. This is the attention to detail and low impact installations we at KRE are known for.

Smoothing process to ensure that there is a 'fall off' or slope to provide drainage and prevent pooling of water on the slab.

Particular attention is paid to the area under the tower.

Concrete dries to 70% of full strength in 2 weeks and is fully cured in 25 days.

It takes at least 10 days to dry to a strength that will support the installation of the tower base. Oops, how are we going to get our blue helmet now?

The cones are removed - you can see how the space around the bolts will aid the fitting of the tower base and allow a small bit of flexibility.

A rope is installed within the conduit also, to allow further cables, sensor wires etc to be pulled through.

This is the tower base, galvanized, colour coated and ready for shipping.

Portable tower installation crane being assembled (our patent).

We design and fabricate these cranes for our installation teams, they are made of lightweight aluminium but are very strong and fold away for easy portability and storage.

Using a system like this allows a really low carbon installation; no plant. cranes, telescopic lifting arms or diesel is required.

The tower base is lowered onto the holding down bolts. A former is fitted and the grouting begins.

The grout spreads the load and supports the downward forces from the tower.

The grout is shaped to encourage water to run away from the tower flange.

The tower pieces arrive on site...

...and the hinge pin and first tower section are attached to the base.

The hydraulic rams are attached.

Now the rams will allow each subsiquent tower piece to be lifted from the transporter into place.

The tower sections are bolted together.

One section at a time are added.

Until finally all tower sections are in place. Phew, that was a long day.

The turbine body is next.

The turbine is manouvered into place and the rams are used to lift it onto the tower top.

A heavy duty isolator and shutdown switch is fitted to the tower base. This is a legal requirement and allows the turbine to be stopped and made safe prior to dropping the tower for maintenance.

The pre balanced blades are bolted on.

Everything is checked for alignment and balance.

The turbine and tower are now finished; time to do the electrical installation.

The pre assembled inverter board is put into place and connected.

If an interval meter has already been fitted by the utility supplier the installation is now finished.

The tower is ready to be raised and the turbine commisioned at this stage.