INDUSTRIAL CLIMBERS
The sun is shining, but it is miserably cold.
No surprise there; it’s December. And
we’re outside, in the middle of nature. Our
colleagues from the wind team at Phoenix Contact,
Karl-Heinz Meiners and Lukas Christ, are currently
discussing the situation with Tommy Liebmann
and Selvin Keller. These two are industrial climbers.
Out here, they have the job of installing the new ice
detection sensors from Phoenix Contact where they
belong – namely, on the blades of a wind turbine.
In this case, these are three giants together,
the hub of which is mounted 140 meters above
the forest floor, while the individual blades, with
a length of more than 70 meters, reach even
higher into the steel-blue sky. One of the blades
is currently aligned precisely so that it is pointing
straight downwards. Welcome to the workplace of
Selvin Keller and his colleague.
It only seems that industrial climbers have a
lonely job at first glance – all alone on the facade,
tower, or rotor blade. But teamwork is one of the
basic requirements, as 27-year-old Keller explains.
“We always work as a team. One man safeguards,
one climbs. This has also been the prescribed
standard for a long time.” Our colleague Liebmann
is already in the wind tower and is taking the
elevator to the nacelle. From there he will climb,
secured of course, onto the turbine roof and lower
the climbing ropes on the outside of the tower.
No place for adrenaline junkies
“Industrial climbing doesn’t have much in common
with sport climbing,” says Selvin Keller. “We use
rope access technology to reach places that would
otherwise be very difficult or impossible to reach
with scaffolding or lifting equipment. The job is not
the climbing, but working on the site. Therefore,
most rope access workers are trained craftsmen
and skilled workers who just happen to have a
workplace that is a little more exotic,” he grins,
and adds, “I’m one of the few exceptions, because
I’m actually a trained retail salesman. I learned
rope skills at a Australian rappelling event held
by Jochen Schweizer. It captivated me and never
let me go.” Since then, Keller has combined his
passion and the profession he learned by founding
a company that offers rope access work.
No sooner is he down again than Tommy
Liebmann joins the briefing with the Phoenix
Contact experts. Meiners and Christ pull out
the installation plans and explain exactly where
the ice detectors have to be positioned. The two
3
– the certificate
level that includes
training to become
an industrial climber
in Germany
Working at altitude is
hard work; specialists
are rarely older than 50
22
UPDATE 5/20
The Phoenix Contact innovation magazine