Züst & Bachmeier Project has handled the transport of a 535.5-tonne Siemens transformer from the Siemens production facilities in Nuremberg to bayernhafen Nürnberg, Germany for onward transportation to China.
Züst & Bachmeier transported the transformer, which measured 13.6 m x 6.14 m x 5.9 m, to bayernhafen Nürnberg using a high girder bridge.
Along the 8 km journey the convoy, which, including the girder bridge, measured 64.3 m in length and had a gross weight of 875 tonnes, had to overcome a number of challenges, including the Minervastraße railway underpass and several bridges.
Hydraulic strand jack equipment was used to transfer the super-sized transformer onto a barge for onward transportation to Rotterdam via the Rhine-Main-Danube Canal. From there the transformer will be shipped to northern China.
The transformer is the first in a series of four which will form the 3,284 km high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission link between the Chinese cities of Changji and Guquan. In cooperation with its Chinese HVDC transformer plant in Guangzhou under the supervision of the Nuremberg transformer plant, Siemens is producing the world's first 1,100 kV converter transformers - and with a capacity of 587.1 MVA, the most powerful in the world.
The HVDC line between Changji and Guquan will be operated by State Grid Corporation (SGCC), a Chinese grid operator. The connection is expected to begin operation in 2019.
A video of the project can be found here.
