Greek power with Geda

Geda has deployed customised hoists to support the construction of a new power station block in Greece.

A new block is being built at the Ptolemaida lignite power station located about 600 km northwest of Athens in Greece.

In addition to an increase in output, the Block V expansion is incorporating complex modernisation, with height access being supplied by six hoist solutions from Geda-Dechentreiter.

The 660-megawatt power station is a turnkey construction project by Hitachi Power Europe, based in Duisburg, Germany, together with Terna, a Greek power plant engineering and construction group. The contract for the multi-billion Euro project was signed in March 2013 with Greece’s state and largest energy supplier energy supplier Public Power Corporation (PPC).

The new lignite block Number V will partially replace other power station blocks in Ptolemaida, some of which are up to 50 years old. Stagakis, the Athens-based construction company employed to carry out the work, required the hoists to be installed on a wide range of different structures on the construction site.

Pantelis Stagakis, managing director of Stagakis, said, “We were faced with several complex tasks, in particular the height of the individual structures rising daily, as the installation height of the cranes and the industrial hoist solutions had to increase in line with the height of the building construction. It must also always be possible to disassemble and reassemble the hoists at another location so as not to impede construction progress.”

Here three Geda Multlift P12 Comfort are being used on the external side of the pylons, inside the shafts and are flexibly adjustable through the special anchorings on different steel constructions.

The compact, pre-installed base unit, which is composed of a car, enclosure, flat cable bin and drive is delivered as one unit. They can transport 1200kg or 12 people on its spacious ‘B-design’ platform with dimensions of 1.4m x 2.6m x 2.1m. Despite the high load capacity, the hoists have low anchoring forces and each use just one mast.

To assemble the external sheathing and to enable workers and building materials to access the formwork, a Geda PH 2032 650 single personnel and material hoist has been installed. The incline of the tower’s exterior wall meant the mast and the hoist had to be adapted to the changing geometry. Therefore, the exit to the formwork from the hoist used an additional ‘D-Door’, which was a customised solution developed by Geda. The free-standing mast projection of 9m enables further complete landing levels to be accessed.

The hoist’s power pack with a load capacity of 2000kg provides a lifting height of 400m and a hoisting speed of up to 90 m/min.

Meanwhile, two Geda 2 PK rack and pinion crane operator hoists are installed on a freestanding crane on the Ptolemaida site. The 2 PK is designed to transport two persons with a load capacity of 200kg. Therefore, any materials required for maintenance tasks can also be transported.

The hoisting speed is 25 m/min with a maximum lifting height of 150m but Geda installed two customised solutions with a lifting height of 186m.

Once the base unit is assembled and anchored, the aluminium ladder sections, weighing 22kg, are installed through the open cabin roof and, using the patented quick-release connections, easily assembled without any screws.

The Ptolomaida V block is scheduled to be connected to the grid in 2020. During peak periods up to 2000 people will be employed on the mega-construction site, and more than 100 companies are providing a range of construction and assembly services and supply agreements have been concluded with many other companies for raw materials and other materials.