So I came across this article most likely via Danwei. It’s about the Beijing Guanting Wind Farm, or it’s installation. I saw that it was called ‘Guanting’ and thought, wow, that must be in Yanqing. But no, lzh informs me it is actually in Hebei, but very close to Beijing. Well, most of Guanting Reservoir is in Hebei, so that makes sense. Anyway, the article is entitled “风太大大风扇停装” or “Wind too big big fan stopped installation”, or “Installation of Large Wind Turbine Stopped Due to Strong Winds” or whatever. Anyway, here’s the article with my crappy translation:
昨天上午，北京官厅风电场一期工程的33台大风车进入最后施工阶段，直径70米的巨大风扇开始向基座上吊装。不过昨天由于风太大，风扇吊装到3米后只好临时暂停，推迟到今日继续吊装。
Yesterday morning the first phase of the Beijing Guanting Windfarm project’s 33 large wind turbines entered the last stage of construction, the giant fans with a diameter of 70 metres began to be hung from their bases. But because the wind was too strong yesterday, after the fan had been lifted to 3 metres it had to be stopped temporarily, and the installation was postponed until today.
上午10点，指挥部一声令下，第一座大风车开始吊装风扇。这面由玻璃钢制作的大风扇由三片巨大的螺旋桨叶组成，每扇桨叶都像一面巨大的帆板，桨叶重5.6吨，整个大风扇的扇面直径达70米。风扇由一大一小两座吊车徐徐吊起。据现场工程指挥人员介绍，为了吊起这些巨大的扇面，工程项目部启用了北京最大臂力的吊车，其中大吊车臂力达350吨。
At 10 am, the command post ordered the installation of the fan of the first wind turbine to begin. This fibreglass fan made up of three giant blades, each blade looking like a giant windsurfer and weighing 5.6 tons, the diameter of the entire fan reaching 70 metres. The fan is gently lifted by two cranes, one small and one large. According to the introduction by one of the project’s directors, in order to lift these giant fans, the project’s logisitcs department [what the hell is a 工程项目部?] started using the cranes with the greatest arm strength [help! technical term?] in Beijing, one crane among them having an arm strength of 350 tons.
但由于现场风太大，大风扇吊起3米左右就停在了半空。风电场筹建处总工程师李曰华告诉记者，风扇吊装的技术难度非常高，受天气因素影响很大。一般来说，风速小于8米/秒才能顺利吊装，昨天基座顶端65米高的风速已经达到12米/秒，为了不让风吹扇面磕碰基座，所以只好暂停吊装。
But because the wind at the site was too strong, the big fan was stopped in mid air when it had been lifted to about three metres. The chief engineer of the windfarm’s construction planning department, Li Yuehua told the reporter the degree of difficulty of the technique of installing the fans is very high and is very strongly influenced by the weather. Generally speaking, if the wind speed is less than 8 metres per second the fans can be successfully installed, yesterday the wind speed at the top of the 65 metre high base had already reached 12 metres per second and to prevent the fan from knocking against the base they had to suspend the installation.
And I translated all of that because there’s some cool states about the size of the turbines in there. That’s all. Otherwise it’s a pretty boring report, actually. Anyway, when I asked lzh about this windfarm, the conversation went like this:
lzh: “is near yanqing but it belongs to hebei”
me: “ok. the first thing I saw about it said it was in Beijing, I saw it was called guanting, so I thought must be Yanqing”
lzh: “but beijing municipal government wanted to keep it as its own hebei never agreed”
me: “so Beijing stole some of Hebei?”
lzh: “u can say this”
Read into that what you will. I can’t be bothered finding out about the history of this project, myself.
