100kVA & 2 x 500kVA Generators for Disused Steelworks

An industrial relocation company contacted Powerhire for the provision of generator power in connection with plans to redevelop the disused steelworks in Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey.  The steel works tear-down, land remediation and refurbishment of existing warehouses had been broken down into four key work packages.

The relocation company who specialise in the de-construction, relocation and re-assembly of heavy machinery required the generator power for the removal of the old plant, equipment and the old furnaces.  The steel production furnaces and a large rolling mill on the 53-acre site had been left untouched since the specialist rebar steelworks was closed in 2012 and the only way to remove the gigantic furnaces was to power up the existing gantry cranes to recover these 2 to 60 tonne commodities, which could then be salvaged for sale or scrap.   Generator power was required because all the internal cabling and been stolen and therefore no mains power was available.

Our Technical Sales Manager was contacted for the provision of generator power to the workers village as well as eventually providing power to the gantry cranes.  He visited site to liaise with the contractor to assess the site constraints and run through the workers accommodation requirements.  The accommodation required immediate generator power whilst the crane power was not so imminent as it was necessary to bring in a specialist crane company to ensure the cranes were able to work safely as they hadn’t been in operation for many years and were extremely outdated.

Our Technical Sales Manager specified the generator power required for the accommodation and whilst onsite he also carried out an initial investigation on the crane’s technical specification to provisionally ascertain the power that may be required.

Our installation team delivered a 100kVA to site together with distribution to provide generator power to the workers accommodation village.  Our Technical Sales Manager also went to site to meet with the crane experts whose job it was to assess the cranes suitability for operation.  We liaised with the client in recovering any information we could on the very worn and obsolete cranes which were void of any electrical working panel instructions, motor or model details and they were covered in an immense amount of debris as well as being in the dark 40 metres up in the gantry!

Based on the information available and discussions with our client a 500kVA generator together with cable was delivered to site and connected directly to the crane’s infrastructure with aim of testing cranes 1 and 2 to see if they would work.

When the generator power was connected up to the copper bars feeding both cranes they both worked successfully with no problems at all, which was fantastic.  Therefore we delivered an additional 500kVA for the generator power to crane 3, the final crane which had the same lifting capacity as both cranes 1 and 2.

With all 3 cranes working the removal of all commodities was successful and the site was cleared and ready for demolition and redevelopment.