Reading time: 8 minutes. Wind turbines up to 600ft high must be constantly under maintenance following logistic plan designed especially for each project.

According to the World Wind Energy Association (WWEA), the total capacity of wind turbines installed worldwide at the end of 2019 reached 650.8 Gigawatts, a growth of 59,667 megawatts compared to 2018.

China and the United States reached their highest market volume in the last five years. Together, the two countries account for nearly two-thirds of global growth in wind power, according to The Guardian.

Over the past decade, the use of wind turbines has increased more than 25% a year, according to National Geographic. For WWEA Secretary-General, Stefan Gsänger, it is important for governments to keep investments in wind energy in their economic strategies.

“Not only will [renewable energies] help overcome the economic devastation caused by the corona crisis, it will also address the world’s second challenge, the climate crisis. (…) [and] will bring manifold social, economic and ecological benefits,” says Gsänger.

Logistics to move wind turbines

At the end of 2017, there were already more than 340 thousand wind turbines in action worldwide. Operating them also requires continuous maintenance, from diagnosing issues to the digitization updates necessary to continuously optimize the service.

Our client in today’s story provides critical maintenance services in this area: if their brand’s equipment has problems that result in an operation below 95%, the company becomes liable to a contractual fine.

This is one of the reasons why companies in the industry of renewable energies need more than a trustworthy freight forwarder. In Europartners Group, they’ve found a logistics partner with robust operations, multimodal alternatives, specialists in moving project cargo, with experience in mitigating disruption risks in supply chains, able to offer a two-year contract of uninterrupted services. And that’s just the beginning.

In general, their biggest necessity is to bring spare parts from Europe to the Americas, relying on comprehensive logistic solutions that include extra services such as:

• using small units for the collection services (first mile) from the shipper,
• merchandise conference and checking,
• storage,
• 24/7 monitoring directly with our operations teams,
• next shipments’ follow-up, with a robust control at all stages,
• real-time visibility to the customer, since their headquarters in Spain and in all destinations.

The time difference is not an issue for us, but a service differential.

Custom-made solutions

In Europartners Group, we have personalized advisory services that enable us to build hand in hand with our clients the perfect solutions to their most specific needs.

Our experts work hard in plans that can:

• solve all the details of all the requirements listed
• mitigate risk levels
• make the cargo arrive ASAP
• if it’s necessary, react immediately
• improve processes in each new project

We can adapt to all our clients’ needs, with controlled Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

For instance: since our alliance with this client began, in April 2020, we’ve improved our KPIs level to refine our communications with them, after we identified the need to give them more concise information, with smart, detailed and standardized cargo status, so we wouldn’t saturate our contact channels, balancing the need to be available 24/7 without decreasing the required monitoring levels.

Optimized communications: keeping in constant contact through less emails, to simplify the high-volume operations we manage.

The best plans through the best routes

From Mexico to the United States, for example, the best solution was ground freight, with dedicated units of all sizes and capacities. Nevertheless, after seven months of uninterrupted work, Air Priority services were also triggered many times in this route (and others!).

Since the begging of our contract, we’ve organized an average of five weekly shipments, almost all with Air Priority services.

Since we have +70 own offices in 19 countries and a robust network of agents all over the world, we can organize several routes alternatives from the client’s key distribution points also by ocean and ground freight.

Most of our operations are held using time-sensitive air import services, to meet the customer’s spare parts management critical needs. We have transported from screws to large machinery, such as motors, gearboxes and other components necessary to fix all the equipment.

As we can see in the map above, the main air routes used go from Spain to Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Nicaragua, as well as from Brazil and the United States to Mexico and Central America, and from China to the Dominican Republic.

Ocean freight has been the best solution to save costs between Brazil and Uruguay to Mexico. To increase safety while loading and unloading large components in Mexico, Central America and South America, we have found an excellent supplier for crane services.

As we mentioned before, our ground freight teams found great solutions between the United States and Mexico, as well as between Mexico and Central America and also internally between Central American countries, delivering excellent services between Honduras and Costa Rica.

Every time the company needs a shipment, their logistics team and Europartners account executive meet online to discuss the details and decide the preferred modalities. Our teams then start to develop the best logistics plan (offering a cheaper, consolidated option, for example).

Do you need customized logistics solutions for your company in the renewable energies sector? Contact us now. We have the right specialists to move from microchips to the largest wind turbines on the market.