Van Oord and Mammoet have teamed up with Verton, “a promising scale-up” which has developed a new lifting method for the installation of wind turbine blades. The company was scouted via the Rotterdam-based maritime innovation platform, PortXL.

Verton has developed a remote rotating device that uses gyroscopic modules to rotate a suspended load. A new concept has been developed in which this unit is integrated into a lifting yoke for installing wind turbine blades. “The system allows operators to rotate and install heavy loads without using tag lines. Not only is this safer for operators, but it also shortens the installation cycle times,” Says Wouter de Wildt, the mentor from Van Oord.

Jacques Stoof, director market development and innovations at Mammoet, commented: “We are pleased to collaborate with other organisations in the same field, so we can jointly develop new tools and equipment to help the world of renewable energy to work safer and more efficiently.”

Both Van Oord and Mammoet have committed to engage in the first of three phases of the development. The first phase is to have the technical assessment and requirements made up. Turbine supplier Vestas will also be a knowledge partner in this development and will provide the technical information and expertise required for the development of the new product.

Verton CEO Trevor Bourne said the partnership with Van Oord and Mammoet as well as a technical partnership with Danish wind turbine supplier Vestas are a watershed moment for the company.

“This has been a fantastic year so far for Verton and one of the highlights has been our involvement in the PortXL accelerator program where along with other scale-ups and start-ups we have benefitted from the mentorships from companies such as Van Oord and Mammoet,” Mr Bourne said.

“We are very excited about partnering with these two great Dutch family-owned companies to develop a new and safer method for installing wind turbine blades.”