History

Established in 2005, Windhoist are a sister company of the highly successful crane company Mc Nally's Crane Hire.

Windhoist is now recognised as the largest wind turbine installation contractor in the UK with an increasing market share in mainland Europe and beyond. In fact, earlier this year we passed a significant milestone of 3000MW installed.

Our involvement in the wind industry began more than ten years ago with the installation of 400 - 800KW machines in Ireland and Northern Scotland using 120TE and 180TE cranes. We broadened our activities to encompass the new crane concept offered by the Liebherr LTM 1800 to erecting 1.3 to 1.5MW machines with minimal boom attachements and rapid relocation on site.

Mc Nally's Crane Hire received their first Wind Turbine Project in 1999 which involved using a 400T Crane to erect 600Kw turbines for Vestas. Following on from this, the Company decided to concentrate more of the business on Wind Projects in the UK & Ireland, eventually leading to the purchase of a Demag TC3300 Lattice Crane which resulted in the installation of 10 number Nordex N80 Wind Turbines in Kings Mountain, Sligo, Ireland. Such projects allowed Mc Nally's Crane Hire to extend their Crane Services to include the installation of Wind Turbines.

Mc Nally's recognised the need for a supplier to the Wind Industry who provided an integrated package incorporating Cranage and competent erecting personnel. As a result, in 2005, it was decided to create a new company known as Windhoist Ltd, which offered Clients what they needed in the emerging wind industry. Since then Windhoist Ltd have become leading Wind Turbine Erection Specialists offering heavy cranage and mechanical/electrical services to the Principal Suppliers in the Wind Energy Market.

Our experience in the UK has been gained on some of the most difficult sites seen in Europe with floated roads, steep inclines and meagre wind abatements providing numerous challanges to our crane operators and technicians. Each site, no matter how difficult, was perceived as part of a learning curve and used to shape the theme of the company in developing a strategy to maintain high standards of safety in a high risk industry.

The success of Windhoist is based on the experience built within our parent crane rental company (Mc Nally's Crane Hire) and to this we have added our own trained mechanical / electrical technicians to provide high quality turnkey solutions to Vestas Celtic, Siemens,  Senvion, Nordex, Acciona, Enercon and Gamesa.

We have long felt that Liebherr long boom technology will continue to have an important influence on the wind industry and worked closely with Liebherr (Ehingen) in the development of the LTM 11200-9.1. We have successfully introduced the concept to Siemens wind power on a number of French projects and the crane has proven to be the safest and most efficient method to erect 80M towers, it can be safely relocated on site in less than 4 hours with minimal work at height during mobilisation.