"We have agreements with barge companies based out of Florida where our trailers can go on the barge and actually make it to Puerto Rico where they are taken off the barge, the key difference being that you don't need to load and unload."Ī similar type of specialized solution led to the creation of the Rockville yard, and now ATS is looking to recreate that project's success. "We have a special service called roll on roll off," Lemke said. The company even has a facility in Jacksonville, Florida, that is dedicated to serving Puerto Rico, although those deliveries are not wind related.
#Ats trucking full#
"Then, when it's time for loadout and delivery to pad, we'll load a full turbine and they are going to sequentially leave as they are being offloaded on site, a minimum of 30 minutes apart so they are not disrupting traffic."ĪTS also arranges ocean transport for its customers if components are coming from Europe or Asia. "We stockpile all components so we can ship complete turbines out at a time," Woitalla said. To put that into perspective, Lemke said you'd have to put 14 average-sized sedans end to end to match the length of the tractor trailer used to haul those blades. Woitalla said when the industry began, blades were about 30 meters long, but this year they did a project with blade lengths of 62 meters. The towers come in three or four sections there are three blades, a hub where the blades attach and a cell component that serves as the brains of the turbine.
#Ats trucking drivers#
"The primary driver of the industry has been the federal production tax credit, and the industry for many years was in the habit of extending that tax credit for maybe one or two years, and it created some peaks and valleys."īut ATS is well-positioned to handle down years due to its overall company size and diversification, Lemke said.Ĭari Woitalla, a senior project manager at ATS, said transporting turbine components is a highly specialized field, and within the company they have a driver class system that works to train and promote drivers for hauling larger loads.Ī typical turbine consists of eight or nine loads for transport, Woitalla said.
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"The industry has always kind of suffered from a boom-bust cycle, if you will," Lemke said. Wind power supplies nearly 18 percent of the state's electricity. In Minnesota, the wind industry has seen $6.8 billion in capital investment through 2016, with no sign of it slowing down, according to the American Wind Energy Association. "When you look at industry segments, wind is by far the largest market share we have," Lemke said. Cloud headquarters.ĪTS has 12 full-time employees dedicated to wind energy projects, and about 15 percent of the company's corporate revenue comes from the wind energy market, Lemke said. and Canada, including 488 employees at its St. The company has more than 3,000 employees and independent contractors in the U.S. "And we've been the market leader really ever since."įor more than 60 years, ATS has built a reputation as an industry leader. "Years ago, we made some strategic investments which positioned us really well in the industry," said Gene Lemke, vice president of projects at ATS.
The yard's development has been so successful that the company is now looking at replicating the project in other states. At the moment, all loads are destined for the Red Pine wind farm project in Ivanhoe. Turbine components arrive by train at the yard before being loaded onto ATS trucks by Landwehr Construction Inc. cranes. Locally, over the last couple of years, ATS has leased and developed a train yard just off Minnesota Highway 23 in Rockville that serves as a hub for its Minnesota wind projects.
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The family-owned company has hauled more than 190,000 wind components since 2003, and ATS says it is behind the wheel in at least one out of every three wind component transports across the United States. Over the last decade, the United States wind industry has invested $143 billion in new projects, and ATS has been heavily involved in that expansion. Cloud-based Anderson Trucking Service Inc. Watch Video: Anderson Trucking Service strengthens its foothold in wind industryĪn early investment in wind energy is paying off for St.